


A Thousand Worlds

by KivaEmber



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Brotherly Love, Character Death, Childhood, Different Genres, Fratricide, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Implied Slash, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Oneshot Series, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:26:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2191800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KivaEmber/pseuds/KivaEmber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of oneshots set in Devil Survivor: Overclocked. Oneshot #9, Until The Earth Stops Spinning. Post-Messiah ending. Naoya’s death felt soft - no, it was numbing. Like a burn that went all the way to the bone, it felt too fatal to even consider pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anathema

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oneshot #1: Pre-canon. The first time Naoya laid eyes on Kazuya Minegishi, he hated him.

The house looked nice.

Modest, perhaps on the small side, but it had a garden, brick walls, and was in a safe, residential area where many of the occupants had children. Naoya supposed that this was meant to be significant to him, so he nodded absently to the woman’s gentle words, focused on the painted gate. Although it was offered, he didn’t hold her hand as they walked up to that painted gate, and Naoya felt like every step was wearisome.

He had met the Minegishi’s before, four years ago. If he recalled, his aunt had been pregnant with her son at the time – Kazuya, be believed the name was, from his eavesdropping of his parents – and he remembered them to be reasonable, yet strict, adults. Naoya didn’t mind them, and out of the selection of relatives he could choose to stay with, they were the obvious choice.

Granted, he would have to deal with a four year old child, but Naoya had experience dealing with those. Depending on his personality, Naoya would either have to bring him to heel, or adopt a doting persona, just to make his life easier. He already had the sympathy card he could manipulate to make his foster parents leave him alone as much as possible, but the child wouldn’t be swayed much by that, so…

The woman – she had been managing his placement, yet Naoya didn’t really know her name, she wasn’t important enough to know – opened the gate, and they walked through it. Naoya cast his gaze quickly over the front garden – a paved path leading to the front door, beautiful flowers that were obviously watered regularly, and grass that was littered with various toys. At a glance, it looked like a loving home.

They reached the door. He felt the woman’s hand hover, as if to hold onto his shoulder, but she didn’t. Naoya pretended to be entranced by a bumblebee settling on a flower nearby. The doorbell rang.

The woman who opened it was middle aged, although she looked younger. She was quite pretty, although not stunningly so, with narrow curves and a tall physique for her gender, her long hair tied up in a high ponytail. She looked like she hadn’t aged a day since the last Naoya saw her.

“Oh, Miss Mimi,” the woman – Mrs. Minegishi – greeted, a small smile on her face. Friendly. Naoya analysed her discreetly from the corner of her eye, carefully avoiding Mrs. Minegishi’s gaze falling on him. Her expression didn’t change, but Naoya could see the slight wariness in her slim frame. “And you must be Naoya.”

Naoya didn’t comment.

The woman – “Miss Mimi” – looked a little exasperated by his coldness, but rallied valiantly. “Yes, he’s still a little- well,” she made a vague gesture, “I’m sure you understand…”

Mrs. Minegishi’s gaze left him much to his relief, “Ah, yes, I did hear about…” she trailed off, and Naoya returned to staring at the bumblebee. He was used to being talked about as if he wasn’t in their proximity, like he had transformed into a potted plant and suddenly lost all ability to understand spoken Japanese. It didn’t bother him though. If he stayed quiet and still enough, he gleaned more information than simply demanding answers like any ordinary child. “I promise I’ll look after him.”

“Yes, thank you,” Miss Mimi said, and she made a small gesture at Naoya’s shoulder. He stepped forward just as Mrs. Minegishi stepped aside, and the interior of the house was warm and in dark colours. Pleasant. He focused on pulling off his shoes, while the two women behind him had a hushed conversation behind his back. He was able to pick up a few words.

“-bit traumatised still so…”

“-is it safe to leave him alone with…”

“-just don’t startle him…”

Naoya neatened up the shoe rack, if only to busy himself while he waited. There were several pairs of shoes – two pairs of male shoes, trainers and smart shoes, obviously Mr. Minegishi’s, then there three pairs of female shoes, trainers, smart shoes, and outdoor sandals, it seemed that his aunt and uncle where running fanatics, or enjoyed casual wear – and then there were three pairs of children shoes, excluding his own. These must be ‘Kazuya’s.

“Goodbye, Miss Mimi,” Mrs. Minegishi’s voice filtered in, and Naoya looked over his shoulder. They didn’t try to call him over to say goodbye to ‘Miss Mimi’, for which he was grateful, because although she had been tolerable, Naoya didn’t really care about her. He straightened up when the door was shut, and watched Mrs. Minegishi fidget with her ponytail while looking down at him. Her expression was careful – there was a smile, but it was a cautious one, as if she wasn’t sure how to handle him.

Naoya just continued to stare at her evenly.

“…do you want a drink?” Mrs. Minegishi said, obviously trying to break the ice. Naoya considered. He was thirsty, so… he nodded.

Mrs. Minegishi looked relieved, and ushered him (without touching) towards the kitchen. Something was cooking when they stepped in, and the counters looked like a mess of cooking utensils and food. Obviously in the middle of cooking dinner. Naoya remained standing by the door while Mrs. Minegishi got him a glass of water, eyes roving over to the fridge where a few crude pictures of… what he was guessing to be a cat, or some malformed animal. The rough Kanji of ‘Kazuya’ was scrawled in the corner.

“Here you are,” A glass of water suddenly entered his vision, and he carefully took it, silently, and promptly took a sip of it, eyes still focused on the picture.

Mrs. Minegishi followed his gaze. “That was done by my son, Kazuya. You remember last you visited, and I was pregnant?”

Naoya nodded.

Mrs. Minegishi smiled, “Well, he’s grown up to be a smart kid. I hope you get along with him,” although she was smiling, there was a notable undercurrent of worry to her voice, her gaze assessing as if contemplating whether he should have contact with her son or not. Naoya didn’t blame her. The report she must’ve gotten from Miss Mimi and the police would make anyone wary.

Naoya sipped his water, if only to hide the slight smirk on his lips.

“I hear that you’re also quite smart,” Mrs. Minegishi continued, drifting back towards the counter. She resumed making dinner. Naoya watched critically. “A genius, even. Is that true?”

She was obviously trying to draw an answer out of him, but Naoya ignored the attempt, losing interest in the movements of her hands and back to the animal picture. He drifted closer to it, seeing other things pinned to the fridge. Appointment cards and the like, as well as a meal schedule for the week. Fish on Wednesday, pork on Thursday, etc, etc.

Very organised.

Mrs. Minegishi took his silence in stride, “We’re having Katsu pork tonight. If you eat all of it you may get pudding, so make sure to try your best, alright?”

Naoya made a vague humming noise to show he heard, and shifted towards the counter next to the fridge. He pushed up a little, settling his glass on it, and then tottered away. He saw Mrs. Minegishi’s head turn to watch him leave the kitchen, but made no move to stop him.

He roamed aimlessly. The living room was spacious, but choked with toys strewn around in a chaos. The corridor was neat and it was where the main storage cupboard was located. There was a wet room that also housed the washing machine and tumble dryer. There was currently something spinning in both. Naoya took his roaming further, and ascended the narrow stairs, eyes lingering on the family photos adoring the walls. The first few was Mrs and Mr Minegishi in various poses of a loving couple, then the next one was of them crowding around a newborn baby – Kazuya, he presumed – and then the closer he got to the top of the stairs, the older “Kazuya” was in the photos.

Something… niggled.

At the top step, Naoya stared hard at the last photograph. It was Kazuya fingerpainting – he had the paint all over him, in his hair, on his face – but he was looking up at the camera with a blissful smile, blue eyes bright and chubby cheeks a little pink. Something about it troubled him, creeping on the edges of his mood. Naoya turned away with pursed lips and a faint frown, unable to pinpoint the uneasiness.

He heard noises from the closest door, and Naoya naturally migrated to it, standing at the open doorway to see the object of his uneasiness sprawled out on the floor, feet kicking idly in the air, and two plush toy cats in either hand, making meowing noises that made sense only to him. Blue eyes glanced over to him in mid-meow, and the boy, Kazuya, froze, lips still parted and eyes wide.

Naoya stared right back to him, the uneasiness returning full force.

“Um, hello…” Kazuya said shyly, pushing himself up and holding the plush cats close to his chest. His face partially hidden behind them, but his blue eyes stared right at him, curious and a little unsure. “Who are you?”

Naoya didn’t reply. His gaze flickered around the room. A futon which had been rolled up and carefully placed in the corner – a few dressers, small enough for Kazuya to get into them, a child’s chair and desk, a toy box that was open and just filled with various stuffed animals, as well as an old fashioned sound system situated in the corner. It looked second hand. There were zoo posters on the walls as well – as well as an animal themed calendar. Hm. His cousin liked animals then. Obviously.

“H-Hello…?” Kazuya’s voice quietened into a barely there whisper, hiding more behind his toys. Naoya reluctantly turned his attention back to him.

“…Naoya,” he muttered, like it’d been wrenched from him. “I’ll be living with you from now on.”

Kazuya straightened up curiously, mouth in a little ‘o’, “Are… are you going to be my new brother?” he asked curiously, almost cautiously hopeful, “Mommy said she was gonna, um, try… but…”

Naoya stared at him levelly. He had been brothers to many kids over the course of history, related by blood or not. He was tired of that now. He’ll act doting if it’ll make this smoother, but he wouldn’t put any emotional investment in it. They’ll die and turn to dust, and it will just be another fleeting life Naoya was forced to remember until the day this all stopped. He didn’t have the mental stamina to remember any more of those.

“Cousin,” he correct, “I’m your cousin.”

“Oh,” Kazuya didn’t seem too disappointed. A relative was a relative to him, he supposed, “So, um, Naoya-nii-”

“Don’t call me that.”

Kazuya paused, but wasn’t discouraged, “…’Nii-san,” he amended. Naoya just let it slide, “Where’s your Mommy and Daddy?”

“Dead,” Naoya said curtly, “Don’t ask any more questions.”

“…okay.”

Kazuya quietened and stared at him. Naoya looked away. His skin felt like it was crawling. This child was… unsettling. It was unsettling him. He kept imagining that gaze being accusing, though of what, he wasn’t sure – it made him want to grab something, hard, round, rough against his fingers and-

Naoya crammed his hands into his pockets, suddenly feeling breathless. His skin felt cold.

“Hey, ‘Nii-san…” Kazuya piped up hesitantly, “Are you okay? You look, um, weird…”

Naoya didn’t reply. He simply turned around the fled.

 

* * *

 

Unfortunately, Kazuya was stubborn.

Even though Naoya kept his emotional distance with polite, yet curt words, Kazuya ghosted his every step. He still avoided speaking to Mrs and Mr Minegishi (who gladly gave him space), but Kazuya was like a tick he couldn’t shake off. When he was reading, he was there at his elbow, _staring_  at him, when he was eating at the table, he  _stared_  at him, when he was doing his homework, Kazuya was  _there staring at him_  – his cousin even invaded his privacy when he had been in the bath, and, honestly, it was starting to creep him out a little.

On afternoon, a few weeks after he was condemned to the Minegishi household, Naoya finally lost his temper.

He snapped the book he had been reading shut, the movement abrupt enough that Kazuya jumped from where he’d been staring at him from the floor, and practically flung it aside. He heard the hard cover crack against the living room’s wooden flooring.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Naoya growled. He didn’t raise his voice, but he didn’t need to. Kazuya still flinched.

“Um… d-doing… doing what?” Kazuya mumbled, face a little pale as he looked at the book on the floor. There was a dent in the wooden floorboard from where it struck. Naoya didn’t care.

“Following me. Staring at me. It’s getting annoying.”  

“Um…” Kazuya’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. It infuriated him.

“What’s going on?”

Mrs. Minegishi’s voice cut through the tense atmosphere, and Naoya turned his head to see his foster parent standing at the living room’s doorway. Her eyes were narrowed, glancing between the book, Naoya, and Kazuya’s stunned, pale face. He could see the suspicion in there.

Naoya simply slid off the sofa and stalked away without a backwards glance.

He heard Mrs. Minegishi’s hurried steps when he exited the room, and hovered just out of sight in the corridor. He heard her hushed, concerned voice – “Are you okay? Did Naoya hurt you?” “No, Mommy” – and felt something curdle in his stomach. He walked away, quietly, and sat in the wet room, listening to the growl of the washing machine drown out everything. Mrs. Minegishi didn’t call for him back.

Something was wrong with this life. The past few had been grey and dull, blurring together into generations of nothing. This life felt wrong though. Emotions that Naoya had buried deep into his core were surfacing violently, and he had a suspicion as to what the cause of it was.

Kazuya.

He felt dizzy and sick. Naoya closed his eyes and cradled his head in his hands.

It couldn’t be.

God was cruel but, anything but this.

Not this.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Kazuya was scarce.

Perhaps Naoya succeeded in scaring him off. That was fine. If they grew up avoiding each other, that would suit him fine. He’ll be leaving this place as soon as he was old enough to support himself anyway.

Mrs. Minegishi was still treating him suspiciously (he had a feeling she was regretting taking him into her home, he could see it in her eyes and body language), so Naoya took himself outside the house. He sat in their garden, homework open in his lap – he was going to a new school now, but it was fine – letting himself absorb the warm sun and gentle breeze. He enjoyed the outdoors sometimes, but most times it left him too bitter to even stand the blue of the sky.

He heard a rustle an hour later, and with a feeling of dread, Naoya looked up. Kazuya was there, having just walked out of the house and bumbled his way through the long grass swaying in the breeze, holding a book before him like a shield. Naoya watched him impassively.

“Um…” Kazuya approached like Naoya was a wild, unpredictable animal. At least his instincts were good, “Y-Yesterday… um, ‘Nii-san dropped this…”

Kazuya held out the book, just within arm’s reach. It was the book Naoya had tossed on the floor in his impulsive flare of anger. Truthfully he had completely forgotten about it.

Naoya returned to his homework, pointedly not acknowledging or taking the book. Awkwardly, Kazuya lowered it after a long moment, and then crouched down to set it in the grass.

“I’ll leave it here, um…” Kazuya bounced on his heels, fingers idly pulling out blades of grass as he kept his eyes lowered. He wasn’t looking at him, but, still, Kazuya’s presence was almost physically painful. Naoya pressed his pencil so hard into his notebook he was in danger of tearing the paper.

“Naoya-nii…” Kazuya mumbled, and Naoya was so determined to ignore his existence that he didn’t bother to correct him, “Um, can I… ask you?”

Naoya’s silence was stony. Kazuya took it as an affirmative.

“I heard Mommy and Daddy talking… about you,” Kazuya began, and he sounded uneasy. “And I remember Naoya-nii saying before that  _his_ Mommy and Daddy were,” he gulped and whispered, like it was a bad word, “ _dead_.”

Naoya said nothing, pencil gouging a rough hole into his mathematics homework.

“I don’t understand it…” Kazuya mumbled, “I don’t know what, um, some of the words meant, but I know… something horrible happened with Naoya-nii recently, didn’t it? And… and you’re all mad and stuff about it. That’s why you’re acting all mean, right?”

…

Kazuya was damnably perceptive, even if he was more than a little wrong.

“Well, I don’t mind,” Kazuya suddenly declared with a confidence that was unusual for him, “Because – because Mommy said brothers had to help each other no matter what, and even if you’re kind of a jerk, I know it’s just because you’re sad and angry.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Naoya muttered, but there was a notable waver to his voice. Kazuya all but pounced on it.

“Nuh uh. I  _know_ \- well, um, sorta. I don’t  _understand_  but, I think, um, know… Naoya-nii’s sad, really sad,” Kazuya bit his bottom lip, hedging cautiously; “But I also think… that Naoya-nii’s angry at… himself, mostly. That’s what it, um, seems like-”

Naoya moved so suddenly that Kazuya flinched, as if expecting to be struck. Naoya didn’t dare to consider it, hastily getting to his feet, homework fluttering onto the floor, hand gripping the pencil so tight it was threatening to break, and simply walked away.

Kazuya didn’t follow.

 

* * *

 

It was three in the morning, and Naoya was seriously considering jamming the bread knife into his throat.

He had made around four jam sandwiches, and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He had smears of the sticky fruit jelly on his fingers and hands, crumbs sticking to them, and was anxiously eating it even if it didn’t get the taste of bile out of his mouth.

It was a bad night. Horrible. Naoya hated these times.

He survived all these lives by being apathetic. Humans and eras came and went, and so long as he projected an uncaring persona, everything was fine. He kindled the fire of vengeance and hatred close to his heart to keep his feet moving, smothering everything else that could weaken and hurt him as this curse ground him into dust.  _Those_  memories, loneliness, regret – smothered. Crushed. Gone. No longer needed. No longer needed. No longer needed.

The bread knife slipped from his trembling grip and clattered onto the floor. Naoya stared at it, the red glistening under the light of the kitchen.

The jam rose in his throat, and Naoya lurched towards the sink, heaving into it. He felt worse afterwards.

 

* * *

 

“Naoya-nii?”

It was Kazuya’s voice, drowsy and slurred. Naoya opened his eyes, not bothering to lift his head off the kitchen table. He could just about see his brother’s- cousin’s- brother’s – cousin’s – brother’s face, blurry and indistinct. He just grunted in greeting.

“Something smells funny…” Kazuya noted, rubbing at his eyes. There was a pause when he seemed to realise the scene he walked on. The butter knife on the floor, the absolute mess on the counters, Naoya slumped in the chair, cheek pressed against the kitchen table.

“Mommy’s going to be mad at this,” Kazuya said cautiously, and there was something peculiar in his expression – familiar in a way that made Naoya feel wretched. Concern. Fearful concern.  _On that face_.

“She’ll be madder about the sink,” Naoya mumbled to himself, and chuckled, because if he didn’t, he feared what else he’ll do. He sat up slowly, wincing at the painful stiffness in his back and neck. He sat and stared at the sink, realising that he should clean it before Mrs. Minegishi got up. He didn’t want her getting even more upset with him than she already was. That could just complicate things unnecessarily.

“Nii-san?” Kazuya prompted cautiously.

“Mm…” Naoya’s gaze danced over the kitchen, landing on the clock. Just past five. Mrs. Minegishi would be down soon. Speaking of…

“Why are you up so early?” he asked, voice hoarse, and rose from his seat. He moved over to the sink, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He should have done this outside at least, but – whatever. He’s cleaned up worse things. He opened the cupboard under the sink for cleaning supplies.

“I needed to pee and, um, saw that, uh, ‘Nii-san wasn’t in his room.”

Naoya always kept his door shut, so Kazuya would’ve had to gone into his room. He couldn’t muster any annoyance about it. He just robotically cleaned the sink, mulling over the events of last night. It had been a rough time. Naoya hadn’t had a slip like that in a very long well. Kazuya’s presence was making him crack.

This life wasn’t sustainable. Something was going to give. What was God’s plan in doing this? Did He hope to torture him some more, thrusting his brother’s face at him, having his brother look at him in ignorant hopefulness and friendliness? Did He want Naoya to kill him all over again? Did He want him to suffer a life of him throwing curses and hatred at him? Naoya didn’t know. He didn’t care at this point.

The question was who had to go. The choice was obvious. Naoya already robbed Abel of his life once, and he didn’t really belong here. He was thrust upon the Minegishi family, and Kazuya was utterly ignorant of everything. Naoya’s movements slowed, staring at the bottle of bleach he used to clean the sink. He could hear Kazuya behind him scraping up the bread crumbs on the kitchen floor.

Naoya shelved the thought for now.

 

* * *

 

“Naoya-nii.”

“Mn.”

Kazuya was watching him carefully from the doorway to his bedroom. It was one in the morning. Naoya was wide awake, idly drawing nonsensical things in his homework notebook. He had been in a slump recently. The work was so simple it bored him to tears, and he refused to simply do it anymore.

“Naoya-nii…” Kazuya repeated, shuffling into the room and carefully closing the door behind him, “I can’t sleep.”

“I see.”

Naoya stopped his idle drawing, and lifted his head to stare at Kazuya. His cousin had that look of cautious hope – expecting to be chased out, but trying anyway. Naoya didn’t really understand it. Kazuya trotted after him like a loyal puppy, despite Naoya’s best efforts to chase him away with harsh, venomous words, or a cold shoulder. Naoya would think his cousin was utterly stupid if he didn’t know any better.

So Naoya just gave up. Fine. Whatever.

Kazuya was staring at him, not leaving in the face of Naoya’s silence. He was becoming immune at this point. No more were the nervous mumbles or flusters – Kazuya stared at him evenly, matching stare for stare, like he had a backbone or something equally ridiculous. He did remember his brother being bold to the point of stupidity…

“…have you considered counting sheep?” Naoya finally offered when it was apparent that Kazuya wasn’t going to leave.

“Sheep?” Kazuya’s nose wrinkled, “Why sheep?”

“Because you’ll need to-” Naoya faltered, trailed off, and looked back at his notebook, “Ah, right.”

Kazuya continued to stare at him, but shrugged off the oddity with apparent ease, “’Nii-san, can I sleep here tonight?”

Bold to the point of stupidity.

“If you want,” Naoya muttered, ignoring how Kazuya’s expression lit up. Naoya focused on the dog he was drawing, hearing the scuff of feet as Kazuya bounded over to his futon and wriggled into it. Naoya was hyperaware of every shift, of every breath, of his little brother-  _cousin_ (stop with that slip) – and soon he was tracing the same line over and over long after Kazuya had drifted off to sleep.

Idly, his gaze drifted to his brother. Asleep. Vulnerable. Curled up  like a little puppy against his side. Naoya dropped his pencil and reached out, fingers touching against his brother’s shoulder, then down, to brush over a stray lock of hair, able to feel the soft pulse in his neck just under his jaw.

Easy.

It’ll be- easy.

Naoya turned away, retracting his hand, and returned to drawing his dog. It was galling to think that after all these lifetimes that he was still the weak, powerless man he had been in that moment he did something irredeemable. He had changed in many ways, yes, he was smarter, more patient, crueller, more ruthless – filled to the brim with hatred until he almost choked on it, hating everything and anything. But in the end, he could not escape the fact that he was Cain, and that next to him, Abel’s reincarnation slept beside him, utterly ignorant of everything, that this cycle had come full circle and he was at this point again.

God’s blade was precise to the point of cruelty. The pain was so keen Naoya felt he would suffocate from it.

 

* * *

 

He was a powerless man. God was beyond his reach, even if He was his sole purpose now. Yet, Naoya had refined spite, had refined it to a fine art, and although this was painful, this was cruel, Naoya had learned to make the best of a worst situation. He learned to handle pain until it was his closest friend.

This was just a bit sharper than usual.

So when Kazuya opened his eyes that following morning, muzzy and disorientated, Naoya was ready. He was ready. He would do this. He would turn God’s blade on Himself – he would drive it home with all of his strength – he was weak, but Naoya knew how to utilise his weakness.

So that morning, Naoya swallowed all of his spite, all of his hatred, all of his anger and anguish, and met Kazuya’s sleepy look with a smile.

“Good morning, brother.”

If he pretended long enough, Naoya knew even he would believe it to be real.  


	2. Motherhen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oneshot #2: Pre-canon. Implied incest. Brotherly love comes in all shapes and forms, and while his and Naoya's was more on the snippy side, well, they had their moments.

There was something strangely bizarre in seeing his cousin in ‘real world’ settings. 

It was probably because of how Naoya dressed - really, Kazuya felt embarrassed to stand beside him sometimes, and he knew that his fashion sense wasn’t exactly ‘hip’ - and how he held himself. He stuck out,  _a lot_ , looking like an alien trying to play human and failing miserably, and yet, Kazuya didn’t know anyone else who was as savvy when it came to figuring out people. Naoya was so sharp he was practically clairvoyant, which disturbed him more often than not, especially when Naoya decided to play the “and what you’re going to say next is” games with him. He really hated it!

So, Naoya was the furthest thing from normal, and to catch him standing in the middle of a convenience store, shopping basket hooked in the crook of his elbow, staring at the shelf filled with instant noodles was… strangely jarring. It was as if Kazuya utterly forgot that his cousin needed sustenance to exist in this world.

Of course, jarring or not, Kazuya didn’t just stand there and gape like an idiot. He did a slight double take, and then shuffled over to his cousin with his head slightly tilted, like a bird approaching something intriguingly out of place.  

"And here I thought you ordered your stuff online like any good NEET," Kazuya greeted, and Naoya didn’t even spare him a glance. 

"I like to get out every now and then," Naoya said simply, finally deciding on which noodles he wanted. A few packs were dumped into his basket (which, Kazuya noted with a quick glance, were filled with similar items; food that could be made within minutes and had little to no nutritional value whatsoever, no wonder his cousin was so scrawny), and Naoya finally turned to him. 

"What are you doing here?" he asked, one eyebrow slightly raised, "Isn’t Aoyama a bit far to go shopping, cousin?"

"I was coming to visit you," Kazuya sniffed, "Maybe buy some food for us, but," he glanced down at his cousin’s basket, "Guess you’re all over that. I hope you’re gonna get some fruit and veg with that though."

Naoya adopted a strange expression; something caught between amusement and… something else that Kazuya couldn’t decipher. “I think I can do without that.”

"What, so you’re going to live off of noodles, dango, and coffee?" At this point, Kazuya was more than painfully aware of what constituted as Naoya’s every day diet. The man only drank coffee, or energy drinks whenever he was blazing through multiple commissions, ate food that he didn’t have to spend time in making, so takeout, or noodles, microwavable meals - really, he tolerated it most of the time, but his cousin was a  _grown ass man_ , even Kazuya took pains to eat healthier than him. 

"Is that a problem?" Naoya asked, the corners of his lips curving upwards. It almost carried an edge of mocking, as if Kazuya was being unreasonable. He’ll show him unreasonable, the smug little-

"Damn straight. Naoya, I think  _I_  can probably punch you in half at this rate. Look how skinny you are,” and boldly, Kazuya’s hand slipped inside of Naoya’s haori to poke and prod at his ribs. He wasn’t so bad that Kazuya could feel them through his shirt, but - it was still skinnier than what was healthy. “If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought you grew up in a cellar for most of your life.”

"You’re being rather critical today," Naoya noted, looking entirely unaffected by Kazuya’s blatant molesting of his torso. 

Kazuya looked a little irritated at the lack of response he was getting, and grudgingly stopped his prodding. “I’m gonna make us dinner tonight.”

Naoya paused, expression odd, before it smoothed out again. Kazuya recognised it as his startled reaction, after years upon years of studying Naoya’s rather wooden emotional responses. Like, seriously, his cousin smiled easily, but it was such a flat, empty thing that trying to find anything genuine was like searching for gold dust in sand.

“You’re making dinner,” Naoya said slowly, then repeated; “ _You’re_ making dinner.”

“Yes, I’m making dinner,” Kazuya said, feeling a little affronted. What, did his cousin think he couldn’t cook? Tch, he’ll show him. He’ll cook him the best damn meal he ever had! Even if his… his cooking expertise was mostly, uh, desserts but- that didn’t matter! So long as he had a recipe to work off of, it’ll be fine! “Look, just go with it, smartass. What do you want?”

Naoya observed him for a very long moment then, intensely enough that Kazuya fought the urge not to shuffle or fidget under the weight of it. Finally, his (weird) cousin looked away with a low ‘hm’, smiling in genuine amusement. “Surprise me. I’ll eat whatever you make.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Kazuya mock-crooned, and clamped his hand  _tight_ around his cousin’s elbow, to make sure he didn’t sneak off the moment he back was turned. Naoya liked to do that sometimes – no, enough times to make it  _irritating_. “Now let’s put back that shit you got and get something  _healthy_.”

And Kazuya was rewarded with the amazing, blissful image of Naoya’s smile twisting into a grimace.

Heh.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, Kazuya was regretting everything.

He forgot that Naoya lived in the shittiest apartment known to man, even though he knew for a fact that his cousin earned enough to get something way better. He didn’t know why Naoya insisted on living with the bare minimum (a one room apartment, a shitty futon, a broken kotatsu, and a million laptops all crammed into such a tiny space), but it was irritating, especially as the only thing his cousin had, in the tiny counter and fridge combo that could be tentatively called a kitchenette, was a microwave oven, a toaster, an inbuilt grill, and a kettle. The grill looked like it hadn’t been touched in eons, and Kazuya was leery in using it in case it blew the entire building up.

But Kazuya wasn’t one to give up, so after a lot of creativity, cursing, stifled crying, and the growing urge to gas himself with the shoddy grill – he had made dinner. It was a trauma he will never recover from, and his cousin better damn well like it or he was throwing him out of the window.

What had he made? Well, Kazuya didn’t really plan ahead; he just grabbed basic ingredients when frogmarching Naoya around the convenience store, so he had to go for simple… especially as his cousin didn’t have a damned cookbook in sight. So, Kazuya went for the most simple of things. He made a bento, since that was the only thing he could make from memory.

Or, rather, food usually found in a bento. Soy sauce eggs, Spinach Tamagoyaki, beef and asparagus rolls, and cooked spinach salad. Maybe he went a bit overboard with the vegetables, but he felt that his cousin needed to catch up on all the greens he missed in his life. That and he bought an abundance of spinach that he had to get rid of. He really was bad at planning ahead for meals.

As they sat round to have dinner, Kazuya stared a little aggressively at his cousin, daring him to say  _anything_  about the choice of meal. Thankfully, Naoya was in a compliant mood that evening, and merely pushed his food around with his chopsticks, looking like he was planning on how to get rid of it without eating. Kazuya watched him like a hawk.

Unfortunately, Naoya didn’t hold his peace for long, “There’s a lot of spinach.”

The room’s temperature dropped by several degrees, “And? Spinach’s good for you. Got a problem with that?”

Naoya glanced at him, and delicately picked up a roll with his chopsticks. “None whatsoever,” he said innocently.

Kazuya frowned at him suspiciously for a few moments, and then reluctantly turned to his own food. He was a little nervous, admittedly. He can make his own bento just fine, and while it wasn’t amazing, it was edible and pleasant enough. He nibbled on the spinach tamagoyaki, and found himself relaxing a little bit. It was on the overly sweet side, but for Naoya, that would be fine, wouldn’t it? He was alright with sweet things, even if Kazuya was a bit more reserved regarding it.

The meal went peacefully. Kazuya took it as a good sign. If Naoya hated the meal, he certainly would have commented on it, and then Kazuya would’ve been forced to throw his meal into the ungrateful prick’s face. Thankfully, none of that happened, and by the time the both of them finished, Kazuya was in high spirits.  

He really enjoyed pleasing the often difficult Naoya, even if he would never verbally admit it. He supposed he never completely grew out of that puppy dog adoration of his cool ‘Nii-san’…

Kazuya set his chopsticks down, giving a small shake of his head when nostalgia threatened to clamp in. “So how was that? Alright? Not going to keel over and die from having something healthy for once?”

Naoya set his chopsticks down also – he had eaten almost two thirds of the entire meal, as Kazuya had set it up as them able to pick and choose between them. Hm, he must’ve really liked it. “It was satisfactory. Too much spinach, though.”

Kazuya’s mood dipped, but not enough to ruin it, “You’ve got a complaint for everything, geeze… it was only too much spinach because you ate most of it.”

Naoya just smiled, airily and emptily, and Kazuya huffed. He hated it when his cousin deflected him like that, as there wasn’t much of a comeback one could make against it. He rose to his feet, carefully picking up their now empty plates and walking over to the sink. He should probably clean them but – whatever. Naoya can do that himself, as payment for Kazuya cooking him food.

As he carefully deposited the plates into the sink, he glanced at the clock on the microwave oven. 2110, it said, and Kazuya suppressed a sigh. He would have to leave very soon to snag one of the trains back home – if he came back any later than eleven, his mom threw a bitchfit, even if it was to visit his cousin. ‘You have school!’, or ‘Do you know what type of people walk about at night?’, etc, etc. He liked to avoid that as much as possible.   

“Right, I have to go now, so I guess you get to have dessert all to yourself,” Kazuya sighed, wiping his hands down on the dishtowel and turning to his cousin. In the span of a minute, Naoya already had his laptop whipped out and open on the table, absorbed into whatever was on the screen. “You couldn’t even have waited  _five_  minutes?”

Naoya just peered at him over the top of his laptop – even his glasses were in place, reflecting the glare of the screen so Kazuya couldn’t see his eyes. “Hmm? For what?”

“…” Kazuya grimaced. “You know… never mind,” he cut himself off at the amused air coming off of his cousin, and traipsed back over to him. He should be going  _now_ , but… well, he could scrape getting back in time, if he ran from the station to his house.

He sat back down at the table, although this time it was beside Naoya, kneeling on the hard, unrelenting floor (seriously, how did his cousin survive on this horrid floor), and peering at the screen. It was, surprisingly, not a mess of code, all blocky, cold numbers and letters, but an email. It was in German though, or something similar to it, and Kazuya couldn’t make heads or tails of the strange language.

“Another client?” he asked, even if he knew the answer. It boggled him that Naoya had clients from all over the world, and not just locally. The internet was an amazing thing in that respect, that his cousin could fulfil jobs that came all the way from America, or Europe, or anywhere else. It spoke a lot of Naoya’s skill, especially considering how much he was _paid_  for some of those commissions. It was staggering.

“Mm,” Naoya’s response was non-committal. He rarely spoke about his clients, or what they ordered, which was fair enough. Probably client confidentiality or something, although it amused Kazuya that Naoya would have such morals. The man normally did this commonly frowned upon without hesitation or thought.

But Kazuya didn’t dwell on it for long. Abruptly, Naoya’s hand clamped onto his head, forcing him to duck down and tear his eyes from the glowing screen. “Ah!”

“You shouldn’t be nosing over my shoulder, Kazuya,” Naoya scolded, but there was no real bite to his words. He almost sounded fond, really, and the pressure on his head relaxed, his cousin ruffling his hair instead and nearly knocking his headphones askew. “Go home, before your mother gets into a snit.”

Kazuya lifted his head up with a frown. ‘Your mother’, he says, like Naoya wasn’t related at all. He always did that – it made him wonder why Naoya distanced himself from their family, yet stayed so close to him. ‘Call me ‘nii-san’, he said all those years ago, and although Kazuya’s memories were fuzzy, he remembered how Naoya seem to obsess over that, even going as far as to call him ‘little brother’. It led to a lot of misunderstandings in elementary school about Naoya’s relationship with him…

“Hey, Naoya…”

“Hmm?”

Naoya was typing. The German email was gone, replaced with another in Japanese. Kazuya idly traced the characters, and saw that it was titled DSP, sent by a “Sho”. It looked to be an update report on a programme of some sort, and the technical jargon was lost on him immediately. He saw something about sound files though, so perhaps it was a recording or music maker…

“You don’t visit home anymore,” Kazuya said after a quiet pause, filled only with the tapping of Naoya’s fingers on keys. “And you’ve been skipping out on a few of our dates, recently.”

“Is that what we’re calling them now?”

“Yeah,” Kazuya kept his tone blunt. Naoya’s typing paused. “What are you up to? You have to be doing some sort of crazy scheme to be hiding away from life like a hermit.”

Naoya didn’t move. His fingers were poised over his keyboard, his eyes unwavering from his laptop screen. His blank expression gave nothing away, but Kazuya waited patiently, staring at his cousin’s impassive face, until finally-

“I’m just fulfilling a promise of ours. Don’t you remember?”

Kazuya wrinkled his nose at the enigmatic response, “Promise? The hell are you talking about?”

Naoya just hummed, and he resumed typing again. The tension that had knotted up on his shoulders had relaxed, and Kazuya knew that whatever he had gently poked had been a Big Deal. It just made him more suspicious. Just what was Naoya up to…? Nothing good, most likely. “Until you remember it, I will remain quiet on the subject. You’ll find out in good time, anyway.”

Kazuya pursed his lips together in an unhappy expression, but dropped the subject. He knew he wouldn’t be getting anything else out of him, “Fine… you’re probably just making it up. Whatever.” He pushed himself up, hand on his cousin’s shoulder, until a wicked idea blossomed in his mind. He paused, “Oh, and Naoya…”

“Mm?”

Kazuya stifled a smirk, keeping his expression innocent as he leaned his weight on Naoya’s shoulder, body half-turning towards him, “It’s the summer holidays soon.”

“I’m aware,” Naoya glanced at him, his careful expression giving nothing away, “Your point?”

“Well,” the hand slid along Naoya’s thin shoulders, until his arm was wrapped friendly like around them, almost nose to cheek with his cousin, “That means more free time for me.”

“…”

Naoya was still. This was a weakness that Kazuya abused ruthlessly from time to time. He didn’t know what it was about, but in moments like this, even if it was a little embarrassing to do, Naoya just froze up. He was easily  _teased_ , like he was a human or something. It was almost like tormenting a little rabbit though, so from time to time, he felt a bit guilty about it.

“So no more date skipping, okay?” Kazuya finished, and quickly, he pecked him on the cheek. Quick and innocent, like all of them, but the response was still deliciously satisfying. Naoya twitched, fingers tapping a rough staccato on the keys, his eyes not moving from the laptop screen. It was like a well contained seizure, and to see his normally unflappable cousin, well, flap, was always a delight to see.

Kazuya moved away, acting as if nothing happened, “Also eat better. I’m not cooking for you all the time.”

“Right,” Naoya sounded a little strangled, “Well, good night then.”

Kazuya smirked, deeming that tonight was a success, although in what, he wasn’t quite sure. “Goodnight. Sweet dreams,  _‘Nii-san_.”

Dully, Naoya’s stare turned to him, “Don’t use that disgusting voice,” he muttered, but his rough voice was betrayed by the slight pink tinting the tips of his ears. Kazuya’s grin turned wolfish.

“Dunno what you’re talking about. Get a good night’s sleep too,” he pushed himself onto his feet, returning that hair ruffle from earlier (although it was done mostly to just mess up his cousin’s hair, Naoya tolerated it with a dark look that promised a dick punch in the future). “I’ll see you around.”

Naoya didn’t respond, but Kazuya didn’t expect one, really.

He left soon after that, well, immediately, and it was only when he was doing a light trot through the dark streets of Aoyama that he turned his mind onto that ‘promise’. Naoya wasn’t the type of person to make them, even as a child, he had been strangely realistic yet pessimistic about humans, and always viewed promises as fragile, breakable things. Kazuya always wondered what could have made Naoya so bitter, but always presumed it involved his parents somehow, and that was a taboo subject he never broached at the words of his own parents. Apparently it had been a really horrible incident…

Eh, whatever. Naoya may’ve just been screwing with him, trotting out an excuse for why he’d been ditching him lately. Didn’t matter, because Kazuya was going to put a stop to it once he got out of school for the summer. Hell, he’ll even draft Atsuro into service if he had to…

So Kazuya continued on, blissfully unaware of the fate that awaited him in only a month’s time.


	3. Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon. Kazuya learns that Naoya could cry, even if it was without noise.

Kazuya heard strange noises in ‘Nii-san’s room.

At first he thought he was imagining them, caught between sleep and wakefulness, but it was when an odd, keening noise seeped through the thin wall that separated his and ‘Nii-san’s room that Kazuya jolted awake. He blinked rapidly, hunkering down deeper under his blankets as he listened to the noises slowly soften, then stop altogether.

Kazuya bit his bottom lip.

What were those noises? They sound pained? Did ‘Nii-san wake up with a tummyache? Kazuya did that sometimes when he got a tummyache? Or maybe… what if, what if a monster had gotten in and- no! No, Mommy said there was no such thing, but- but, ‘Nii-san sounded like…

After much dithering, Kazuya gathered his courage. Stealthily, he wriggled out from underneath his blankets and crawled along the floor until he found his legs. He tottered unsteadily to his door, quietly opening it and shuffling to next door – ‘Nii-san’s door was slightly ajar, and it was still deathly quiet.

Kazuya crouched outside the door, thinking. The hallway was dark, and the shadows loomed over him, shapes shifting in them. He tried to swallow down the fear, but it made him tremble, all too aware of how vulnerable he was at that moment. If a monster leapt at him… ohh, no! Stop thinking that! There were no monsters!

Steeling his resolve, Kazuya pushed the door open and crawled in on his hands and knees. It was dark. So dark he couldn’t see anything at all, except for a thin sliver of light from ‘Nii-san’s slightly parted curtains. Kazuya was painfully aware of how short and sharp his breathing was, his pyjamas sticking to him from nervous sweat.

“’N-Nii-san?” he whispered, voice high, “’Nii-san?”

Kazuya heard something shift, like blankets, and something in the dark moved. Kazuya froze like a cornered rabbit, every hair standing on end, eyes focused on that shape he couldn’t make out. His heart felt ready to pop.

The shape spoke; “Kazuya?” It was ‘Nii-san, his voice all muzzy and slurred from sleep.

Kazuya almost flopped bonelessly on the floor in sheer relief. He quickly crawled across the floor, knees scuffing against the floorboards, and all but clambered onto ‘Nii-san’s lap, dragging up the blankets so he was a huddled little ball against his cousin’s chest with the blankets pulled over his head. ‘Nii-san. ‘Nii-san was fine. He was here…

“Mwrh?” ‘Nii-san made a wordless noise of sheer puzzlement. Kazuya felt his cousin’s arms wrap around him, and they sat there in the darkness, Kazuya quivering and Naoya blinking the sleep from his eyes, with the only noise being their breaths and the ticking of a clock.

“I heard weird noises, ‘Nii-san,” Kazuya whispered, beginning to doubt whether it was real or not. ‘Nii-san was acting like nothing happened at all, and Kazuya had been half asleep, maybe…

“Weird noises?” ‘Nii-san seemed a bit more awake then. He always took his claims of monster sightings seriously, unlike Mommy and Daddy. Maybe he believed in them too? “Weird how?”

“Mn, just weird…” Kazuya mumbled, hesitating before, “I heard them from… ‘Nii-san’s room…”

‘Nii-san paused, and the arms around him tightened a little, “Oh?” his voice sounded weird, too light, like he was forcing it, “You dreamed it, most likely, Kazuya.”

Kazuya peeked out from underneath the blanket. ‘Nii-san’s face was obscured by shadows. He frowned a little, something not settling… right, in his stomach. He couldn’t describe it. It was like a tummyache but not, and slowly, he reached up on an impulse.

‘Nii-san twitched, like he wanted to recoil, but remained frozen as Kazuya’s hands patted his cheeks. They were wet.

“Nii-san?” Kazuya patted again, just to make sure, “Nii-san! You’ve been crying!”

‘Nii-san was utterly silent.

“Did you hurt yourself, ‘Nii-san? Ohhh, um, maybe a tummyache… I should get Mommy-” Kazuya half raised himself out of ‘Nii-san’s lap, but abruptly, his cousin yanked him back, a bit on the rough side, and kept him pinned in close. Kazuya made a quiet, startled noise, and went still – ‘Nii-san’s breathing was weird.

“Don’t tell her.”

There was something… scary in that voice. It was a voice Kazuya never heard from ‘Nii-san, especially directed at him, and he nodded on reflex, his pulse racing and his body suddenly cold. ‘Nii-san’s arms were tight too, almost painfully, but Kazuya daren’t open his mouth. In that moment, he actually felt… a little scared of ‘Nii-san, but… ‘Nii-san wouldn’t hurt him…

…r-right?

As if sensing the effect he was having, ‘Nii-san’s arms loosened and he leaned back a bit, breathing still odd, and in the gloom – Kazuya’s eyes starting to adjust – he saw his cousin rake his fingers through his hair, head slightly turned away.

“No, I mean… there’s no need, it’s not a stomach ache,” ‘Nii-san sounded strangely anxious – unsettled, “I’m sorry, Kazuya, that was uncalled for. I’m just a little… out of sorts for the moment. You should go back to bed.”

Kazuya remained in place. Truthfully his legs felt too rubbery to solidly walk on them, but he could also still feel the wetness clinging to his fingers – ‘Nii-san had been crying. He was also acting weird, and sort of scary, so – well, it was a brother’s duty to investigate and fix things like that!

“Why is ‘Nii-san crying then?” Kazuya asked, tone patient for such a young child, “Did you have a bad dream?”

That happened with Kazuya sometimes. He had a dream so awful he cried and cried and cried until he felt like his head was going to explode. Bad dreams were really scary…

‘Nii-san stared at him. Kazuya stared back. A small breeze ruffled the curtain, and the moonlight seeping through briefly illuminated Naoya’s face. It was pale, dark bags under his dull eyes, and tear tracks glistened against the pallid skin.

“You should go back to bed,” ‘Nii-san repeated robotically.

“No,” Kazuya said stubbornly, “’Nii-san is sad, so I’m staying with ‘Nii-san.”

“…” ‘Nii-san said nothing. He looked away instead, somewhere far away, and didn’t move. His arms hung limply, fingers curled into his thighs, and ‘Nii-san, tall, straightback, proud Nii-san, looked more like a wilting flower at that moment. If defied everything Kazuya had ever known. ‘Nii-san could look like this? It hurt his brain just trying to understand it!

“’Nii-san…” Kazuya pursed his lips together. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t clever with his words, and  he didn’t know what the right thing to do was, so… carefully, he pressed his cheek around Nii-san’s chest, arms around his waist as far as he could go, and sighed. “Let’s go to sleep, ‘Nii-san. I’ll keep the bad dreams away, I promise.”

A childish promise – impossible, really, but ‘Nii-san stirred regardless. Awkwardly, Naoya returned the hug, still sitting stiff as anything. Then, Kazuya made a quiet, startled noise then he felt ‘Nii-san lean back, until they were lying on the futon, tangled up together in a tight hug, blankets caught around ‘Nii-san’s waist, his shoulders.

Nothing was said. It was all quiet. ‘Nii-san’s breathing sounded normal now, and his heart beat slow and sure – Kazuya didn’t need words like ‘I’m fine’. He did it. He helped ‘Nii-san! Kazuya was unable to stifle a wide grin, and he nuzzled his cheek against his cousin’s chest, pleased that the strange, heavy air surrounding his cousin had finally gone.

Slowly, Kazuya drifted off, into a pleasant darkness of sweet dreams.

 

* * *

 

Naoya listened to Kazuya’s breathing ease and even, and immediately let him go, carefully wriggling out of his grasp and crawling out of the futon. He stood on unsteady legs, and stared at the shadows creeping in the corners, the night air cool on his body. He shivered.

Naoya. Naoya Minegishi. He had a cousin called Kazuya Minegishi. This was who he was. He repeated this to himself several times, until the shadows in the corner didn’t seem so bleak, and Naoya stopped trembling.

Slowly, the dream, the memories, of sticky red dripping between his fingers, and Abel’s blank, accusing stare, faded into the dark.


	4. Happy Birthday, 'Nii-san!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon. Kazuya found out it was ‘Nii-san’s birthday. So as a present, he made a “cake” so horrendous it could be used as a bioweapon. Naoya still ate it.

When Naoya woke up that morning, he had a sense of foreboding.

It clung to him throughout his morning routine, and while he stood at the sink, brushing his teeth, Naoya turned his somewhat fuzzy thoughts onto what the problem could be exactly. Had he passed over a piece of homework that was to be submitted on Monday? Had he agreed to some terrible family outing in a moment of lunacy and forgotten about it? No… no and no, Naoya couldn’t recall anything like that as he scratched his brain, and, when spitting excess toothpaste into the sink, deduced that perhaps he was just being paranoid. It happened sometimes. He had lives where something bad happened on a particular date, and it left him feeling a little twitchy for a few lives afterwards.

So Naoya put it out of mind. This was the worst thing he could do.

 

* * *

 

The foreboding feeling reared its head for the second time when he was having breakfast. It was Sunday morning, a day off for him and Kazuya both, but not for their parents, so Naoya was always left to babysit Kazuya on this day. Not a problem. He loved looking after Kazuya. Perhaps not in a healthy manner, as he still recalled killing Abel in gory detail, and sometimes found it hard to differentiate Kazuya from his past brother’s child self, but, hey, that was his own mental problem.

But still, as he ate breakfast (toast, as the other choice was some of Kazuya’s brightly coloured animal cereal), that foreboding feeling persisted. It felt like he was  _forgetting_  something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was, exactly. Which was a bit irritating as the purpose of his curse was so that he wouldn’t forget anything ever, but here he was, racking his brain over something that was possibly important, possibly not.   

Naoya must’ve been pulling faces as he thought, because his cousin was suddenly staring attentively at him, a soggy cereal sticking to the corner of his mouth, a milk moustache on his upper lip. Naoya fought the urge to reach over and wipe his face with a napkin like any good mother would do.

“What’s wrong, ‘Nii-san?” he asked, voice utterly innocent. It sparked an alarm in the back of Naoya’s head, but he immediately brushed it off. Kazuya sounded innocent all the time. It was his default tone.

“Nothing,” Naoya said, wiping the crumbs off of his fingers and leaning his elbows on the table, picking up his lukewarm tea and cradling it in his palms. “Just thinking.”

Kazuya made a humming noise like he knew  _exactly_  what Naoya was talking about, and continued to stare at him as he ate his cereal. It was a little disturbing, and Naoya shifted a little in his seat as he met the stare with a squinted one of his own. Kazuya’s bottom lip started to quiver the longer Naoya stared – and he  _knew_. He knew his broth-  _cousin_ , inside and out, and that face meant Kazuya was  _hiding_  something.

 _Interesting_.

Naoya sipped his tea, refusing to break eye contact as he subtly leaned his upper body forward a little, subconsciously pressuring his cousin. In response, Kazuya started to turn a strange shade of red.

Almost-

“Bathroom!” Kazuya declared so abruptly that Naoya actually  _jumped_  in surprise, sloshing tea all over his lap, distracting him enough for his little cousin to make his escape. The only thing Naoya glimpsed when he looked up, a scolding on his lips, was a blue haired streak racing out of the kitchen and into the depths of the house. Naoya scowled.

That foreboding feeling grew tenfold.

 

* * *

 

After getting a new pair of trousers – and eternally thankful that the tea hadn’t been piping hot, otherwise Naoya would have been making an impromptu trip to the hospital for possible skin grafting on his dick – Naoya prowled the house for Kazuya. The rooms were empty, and Kazuya’s door was locked, and when Naoya had knocked on it, he heard scuffling like someone was wedging themselves under the bed.

That was fine. His cousin had to come out sometime – to pee, to eat, whatever, and Naoya would make his move then. He had  _cultivated_ patience to a fine art, and sitting outside of his cousin’s room for hours on end paled to millennia of waiting through numerous lives. He’ll wait. He’ll wait for his baby brother forever.

…

…alright, that sounded a bit too creepy, even for Naoya’s tastes, so he carefully pushed that thought aside and promptly forgot about it.

 

* * *

 

Patient or not, Naoya must’ve dozed off at some point. He woke up with a snort, having snored himself awake, and spent a befuddled few seconds wondering where the hell he was and why his neck was hurting so much. After kicking the hamster to continue spinning its wheel, it returned to Naoya in a jolt, and he sat up straight to see-

Kazuya’s door open. His cousin had escaped.

Naoya was on his feet in an instant. He stalked down the hallway, frowning at how dark everything was. Was it night time? Had he honestly been asleep that long? A sneaky glimpse past the thick curtains covering the hallway’s window told him, no, it wasn’t night, on account of the sun still burning high in the sky.

Strange.

Naoya continued down the hallway towards the kitchen, although crept was probably the more apt word. The foreboding feeling was practically crushing him at this point, and a bead of sweat rolled down his temple when he felt oddly anxious. Something awful was going to happen, he could just  _feel_  it in his old old bones.

This feeling was proven true when he stepped into the kitchen. The lights were flicked on and Kazuya jumped up from where he had hidden behind the table, throwing up ripped pieces of coloured paper in a crude imitation of confetti. “ _SURPRIIIIIIIIIIISE!”_

Quietly, Naoya had a miniature heart attack. He thought he hid it well.

“Kazuya,” he said, sounding a little strangled, probably on account of his heart trying to escape via his throat, “What-”

“Today’s ‘Nii-san’s birthday! So I did a, um, birthday surprise! Mommy and Daddy said they weren’t going to do anything, but I thought that was mean, so I did this all by myself!”

Naoya’s eyes instantly zeroed in on the calendar hanging on their kitchen wall. October 29th. Shit. That was right. Today  _was_  Naoya’s birthday. How had he forgotten that? He glanced back at Kazuya, that foreboding feeling now a massive hornet’s nest of absolute doom.

Kazuya looked ridiculously proud of himself. Bits of paper were stuck to his hair, and his grin was wide and cheerful, eyes looking up at Naoya expectantly. Slowly, Naoya’s gaze trailed to the table that Kazuya had been hiding behind, and saw what he supposed was… a… a cake? He hoped it was a cake. Either that or the icing that had been lurking in the back of their cupboard had finally mutated into some hideous, sentient creature out for revenge.

“All by yourself?” Naoya parroted, “So you made that…that, er…”

“I made a cake!” Kazuya clambered onto the chair like a puppy, pushing the plate of – ‘cake’, apparently, towards him. “I found cake mix in the cupboard! I, umm, didn’t understand all of the instructions, but I think I did it alright!”

Naoya was- he wasn’t quite sure what he was, because he was feeling too many things at once. He was pretty sure that he was feeling horror at the ‘cake’ his cousin had made though – now that he was looking closely, it looked like the cake mix had egg yolk (complete with pieces of shells) mixed into it, with pools of milk lurking in the lumpy parts, and a thick layer of whipped cream and icing sugar dumped on top. It was… probably lethal if consumed. Naoya already felt his stomach hurting at the thought of fulfilling brotherly duties and forcing himself to eat the damned thing.

“Yes,” Naoya said stiffly, having to force the light, gentle tone, “It looks… wonderful…”

Kazuya  _beamed_.

Damn it, Naoya thought glumly, now he had to eat it.

Of course, he could always sweet talk Kazuya for him to delay it. Put it in the fridge, wait for his parents, and then toss it the moment his cousin’s back was turned. Feign surprise when revealed it was missing. Maybe pin the crime on Kazuya’s mother; she would be a prime suspect anyway. It was doable. Easily doable.

However, Naoya felt strangely trapped under Kazuya’s expectant, adoring gaze. His cousin looked utterly stupid at that moment, holding up a total failure of a dessert, with paper stuck to his hair, suspicious stains on his clothes and skin – Naoya should play the bad guy. Should say, ‘I’m sorry, Kazuya, but I don’t want to celebrate my birthday, and you made the cake wrong’. It would be cruel, but those lessons were the best at teaching, and Kazuya would be upset at him for only a few days. His attention-span was too short for long term grudges.

Naoya opened his mouth, stern words already on his lips-

“Alright. Let’s try it.”

Kazuya made an excited noise, putting the cake back down on the table and scrambling off the chair. “I’ll get you a spoon, ‘Nii-san!”

Naoya stared down at the ‘cake’ like a man prepared to die for a greater cause. He slowly pulled out a chair and sat down heavily, closing his eyes and telling himself that he had eaten worse. A lot worse. Much worse. Not in this body of course, and not for a very long time, but he  _had_ eaten worse. Maybe if he kept his eyes closed, he could think of it as something else… something tolerable… endure, you must endure, Naoya. You cannot fall here.

“Here you go!” He heard Kazuya clamber onto the chair, and Naoya regretfully opened his eyes, reaching out to automatically take the offered spoon. He noted that Kazuya didn’t have one at all. He felt an instant surge of jealousy.

“Thanks,” Naoya muttered, and he eyed the monstrosity before him. How should he even go about this? He knew the whipped cream was safe, even if it was drowning under a thick layer of icing sugar. Hopefully he might get diabetes before he reached the main event and would fall into a sugar-induced coma.

“’Nii-san’s fifteen now, isn’t he?” Kazuya questioned as Naoya cautiously dug his spoon into the cake.

“Hm? Ah, yes, that’s right. I’m fifteen now,” Naoya stared suspiciously at the cream-icing combo on his spoon, “How many years difference is between us, Kazuya?”

“I know this! Um…” Kazuya paused, screwing his eyes shut in thought, and Naoya hurriedly crammed the cream-icing combo in his mouth. He almost gagged, but forced himself to swallow. By the time Kazuya opened his eyes with a cheery “Seven!” Naoya managed to, somehow, school his expression into something less disgusted.

One bite. He wasn’t going to survive this.

“Correct,” Naoya half-coughed, wishing he had a glass of water to help him through this. No, persevere! “Seven. You’re getting better at your maths, aren’t you?”

“Mmhm!”

Naoya scooped up another bit of icing-cream. He muffled a sigh, “How did you find out about my birthday, anyway?”

“I overheard it,” Kazuya said smugly, as if eavesdropping was a talent to be proud of. It was, but not openly, Naoya thought wryly, “How come you never told me your birthday was today, ‘Nii-san? I missed so many and you celebrated all of mine!”

“Hmm…well,” Naoya said slowly, trying to think of a viable excuse. There wasn’t one, really. When one had a different birthday each time they were born over the course of thousands of years, well, technically speaking, every day was Naoya’s birthday. He just… forgot. Well, not forgot but it – well, it was meaningless. Birthdays lost their significance after a while. Of course, he couldn’t tell Kazuya that, so-

“It reminds me of my parents, you could say. It makes me sad.”

“Oh,” Kazuya’s mood dipped a little, and he tilted his head, looking at Naoya intently, “Are you sad right now?”

Well. Naoya was certainly dreading his immediate future, but… “…no. I’m not sad right now.”

Kazuya smiled – a soft little thing – and kicked his legs out, bobbing his head, “’Kay, good. I just want ‘Nii-san to be happy.”

“…”

Naoya couldn’t say anything to that – he still felt… strange, in these moments. He felt disgusting –  _“I killed you, you know”_  – happy, angry, agonisingly sad, but – it wasn’t unpleasant, even if the strangeness was mostly negative. Was he a masochist? Possibly. Maybe. A part of him never stopped regretting his rash actions that day, and maybe, whenever Kazuya ignorant said those things, it made him feel a little closer to being forgiven by the real thing.

Even if that would never happen. Abel, true Abel, hated his guts. He heard what happened to him. He became a  _demon_ , his hatred was so strong. He ruined whatever remained of his brother, and that chunk of him resting behind that innocent, chubby-cheeked face was a festering remnant of hatred and malice. It was almost enough to ruin Naoya’s peaceful satisfaction in just… this. Being Abel’s, or rather, his reincarnation’s brother again.

But Naoya learned to cling to the few things that made life easy, so he blissfully ignored that. It was easy when Kazuya looked up at him like he was the best thing in the world.

Naoya’s spoon finally sunk into the mess of cake mix, raw egg, and milk. He determinedly scooped it up.

“You will always make me happy, Kazuya,” Naoya said, gripping the spoon tightly, “No matter what you do. Never forget that.”

Kazuya stared at him, mouth slightly open, but quickly, it curved into a beaming smile. “I won’t! I won’t!”

And once Naoya had fed his brother the biggest lie he had ever uttered, he faced his punishment like a man. He shoved the spoonful of cake into his mouth.

 

* * *

 

Naoya ate the entire thing.

 

* * *

 

Spending one of his many birthdays on his knees, heaving his guts out into a toilet, was sadly not a new thing. His only saving grace was that he managed to keep it down for the entire day – even when Kazuya’s parents had a change in heart after hearing what Kazuya had done, and dragged them off for a big family meal at an expensive restaurant. Naoya forced himself to eat all of that too.

Two in the morning, and he was puking out everything. Honestly, Naoya spent worse birthdays.

And, really… he didn’t regret it. Everything was still a big mess in his head – angry, sad, bitter, and yet, it wasn’t bad. Kazuya drew those emotions out to the forefront, but they were – well, Naoya didn’t know what they were. Although he doubted he would survive another of Kazuya’s birthday cakes. Maybe in a few months’ time, he’ll teach him how to do it.

As a wave of nausea overtook him again, stomach seizing in pain, Naoya reconsidered. No. Definitely.  _Definitely_  teach him baking, if he was going to make this an annual thing, because even if Kazuya made a cake that finally killed him, Naoya would still eat it. Besides, it would make things even for them, eye for an eye after all…

(Although, at this rate, Naoya would prefer being beaten to death by a rock than suffer this horrific bout of food poisoning – at least that death would be slightly quicker and more dignified)


	5. Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-canon. Kazuya wants a puppy, Naoya is not so sure.

It was the New Year’s holiday, so the shopping mall was bustling, filled with families and harried mothers moving between shops, bright signs of sales and limited offers luring the more impulsive shoppers inside. It was a chaotic environment, and Kazuya found himself constantly looking up in awe, the bright lights from the decorations dazzling him.

This was Kazuya’s eighth New Year, and he was pretty excited for it. This year ‘Nii-san was taking him out shopping to get mommy and daddy presents, and, he suspected that ‘Nii-san was trying to see what he wanted as well, so he could sneakily buy him his present later. Which meant – Kazuya was going to be super open about what he wanted, just to make it easy on ‘Nii-san. He was sure he’d be happy with whatever he got from him anyway, since it would be from  _‘Nii-san_.

“Have you given any thought what you’re going to get?” Naoya’s voice cut through Kazuya’s building excitement, and he bobbed his head enthusiastically in response.

“Yup! But it’s a secret, ‘Nii-san, so you can’t look when I get it!”

Naoya looked terribly amused, but merely nodded, “Alright.”

Kazuya hummed to himself happily, lightly swinging his and ‘Nii-san’s hand. His grip was tight around his hand, as if worried that he would break away and run off into the crowd, but he didn’t have to worry about that! As dazzling as everything was, the crowd was thick enough that it made him a little nervous, so he stuck close to ‘Nii-san’s leg,  keeping up as well as he could with ‘Nii-san’s long, purposeful strides.

Even though ‘Nii-san was taking pains to go slow, he was still fast! Probably because he was so tall – ‘Nii-san was seven years older than him (so right now, he was  _fourteen_ , which was  _twice_  as old as Kazuya!), and he was amazingly tall. He towered over mommy, and was taller than daddy, but he was also really slim, like that narrow tree that grew in his back garden. But because he was so tall, his one stride was like three of his, even when ‘Nii-san was going super, super slow.

Thankfully, ‘Nii-san noticed before Kazuya had to flag it up. “Am I going too fast?”

“No, I can keep up,” Kazuya said, although his legs were pretty tired, and they hadn’t even started getting the presents yet. The thought of walking for, like, hours after this almost made him want to tear up a bit.

But ‘Nii-san just sighed in that indulgent way of his, smile fond, and let go of his hand to stoop down and pick him up as easily as anything. Kazuya fisted his hands tight into the fur collar of ‘Nii-san’s coat, cheek pressed against his soft, pale hair, and was privately thankful, even if he whined a little, just to save face, “’Nii-saaaaaaan…”

“Kazuyaaaaaa…” Naoya returned in an equal whine, although it tapered off into a good-humoured laugh, “I’ll feel better if I carry you, so just indulge your worrywart of a brother, okay?”

“Fine,” Kazuya pouted, but he wasn’t angry – he could never be angry at ‘Nii-san – and off they went deeper into the crowd, ‘Nii-san’s arms sure and strong around him.

 

* * *

 

It was only when they got all the presents that ‘Nii-san let him walk by his side again, if only because his other hand was occupied with the bags. Kazuya amused himself by fiddling with his ‘Nii-san’s fingers, and ‘Nii-san would playfully wriggle them from time to time, drawing the game out. It was when Kazuya was starting to get bored with it though that he spotted  _it._

It was a small shop, easily passed over since it looked almost invisible from its neighbouring shop’s brightly coloured fronts. But its windows showed squirming puppies, and instantly, Kazuya was snagged. He pulled on Naoya’s arm, shouting, “Look! Look!” and his ‘Nii-san followed instantly, offering no resistance as they stopped right outside the shop, Kazuya’s nose practically pressed up against the glass.

“Looook…” Kazuya tapped the glass, smiling at the puppies all wriggling in a pile. Some were soft coloured, some were dark, and there was one that was all white, big and poofy – it almost looked like a miniature sheep. Kazuya bounced on his heels, turning his eyes up to his brother.

‘Nii-san was staring at the puppies with a strange look, one Kazuya couldn’t understand, but the moment ‘Nii-san realised he was being looked at, the weird expression vanished, and he smiled, the shadows in his eyes gone. “Do you want a closer look?”

All thoughts of ‘Nii-san’s weird look flew out his mind, “Yes! Yes, I wanna look at the puppies!”

“Alright. Just a quick peek, alright? Your mother will be expecting us back soon, and it wouldn’t do to worry her.”

Kazuya nodded furiously, and ‘Nii-san peered at him for a moment before shaking his head with an odd smile. ‘Nii-san led him into the shop, and Kazuya promptly went over to the puppy pen – the glass was low enough that if Kazuya propped himself on his very tiptoes, he could lean over the glass edge and reach his hand down. Wet noses snuffled at his palm, and he giggled, trying to pet as many puppies as he could.

Behind him, he heard someone come up to ‘Nii-san and start talking. He couldn’t hear what they were saying though, and ‘Nii-san replied in a bland, even tone. He noticed that ‘Nii-san did that a lot. When he spoke to other people, or even mommy and daddy, his voice was all flat and weird, like he was always bored, with an equally straight face. But when ‘Nii-san spoke to  _him_ , he smiled and his voice was all warm and pleased, and it made Kazuya feel  _special_. ‘Nii-san was happy with only him, and while a part of Kazuya knew it was really selfish of him, he hoped that would stay the same forever, because Kazuya was at his happiest with ‘Nii-san.

Most of the puppies drifted away once the excitement of a strange hand lost its allure, and Kazuya was left with petting one particularly pudgy puppy. It was chocolate coloured, with floppy ears and a bright pink tongue. He didn’t know what breed it was – Kazuya only knew a handful, and he found it hard to recognise those in puppy form – but he supposed it didn’t matter. He liked it. It was so cute, and friendly…

“Are you done?” ‘Nii-san asked over his shoulder, and Kazuya felt ‘Nii-san’s hair tickle his cheek. He giggled at the warm air blowing over his ear, and shook his head. ‘Nii-san obligingly straightened up, his smile looking suspiciously like a smirk.

“’Nii-saaaaan, that tickles!” Kazuya complained, but he was still smiling, “Hey, hey, ‘Nii-san, can I have this puppy?”

‘Nii-san went still for a second, his smile faltering, before it returned, “Ah, well, getting a pet is a very big responsibility, Kazuya.”

Kazuya felt himself frown, “I’m plenty respon- res- um, that! I’ll look after it loads and stuff!”

“Responsible,” ‘Nii-san repeated, “And I know, but this isn’t something we can just decide on our own. Your mother will want to have an input on it.”

Kazuya drooped like a wilted weed, his bottom lip sticking out a little, “…Mommy will say no.”

“All the more reason not to buy it behind her back,” ‘Nii-san said patiently. Unlike other adults, or, older people, since ‘Nii-san wasn’t an adult yet, he never got annoyed whenever Kazuya questioned him or tried to weasel his way into – or out of – things. He spoke calmly and evenly, never faltering, never losing patience, and always explained why he did this or that. It made Kazuya feel better than getting yelled at or being told “because I’m an adult and you’re a kid!” That was always a dumb excuse.

Kazuya turned back to the puppy, pouting at it and sadly scratching it behind its ears. He really wanted it – it was cute, and it liked him, and- and he just wanted it. Mommy would say no, though. She hated animals, they made her sneeze or something, but, still…

‘Nii-san sighed behind him. “We can come visit it as much as possible over the holidays. Now, Kazuya, we need to be getting back before your mother worries.”

“Mn.”

Glumly, Kazuya took ‘Nii-san’s hand, and they exited the shop. He swung their hands, but there wasn’t a lot of energy behind it, and he felt ‘Nii-san squeeze his fingers a little. He didn’t feel much better though, because he really wanted that puppy, and the crushing disappointment was something that was surprisingly painful.

He sniffed.

‘Nii-san hummed, “How about we get some hot chocolate on the way home? What your mother doesn’t know can’t hurt her.”

Kazuya perked up a little bit. Mommy was strict on sweets, and this was ‘Nii-san’s way of making it up to him about the puppy. He smiled a little, and nodded, and ‘Nii-san gave another little squeeze of their fingers. Mn, even if they couldn’t have the puppy, he supposed it was okay… so long as ‘Nii-san let him visit it as much as possible!


	6. Spiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Atsuro ending. It was his face but not his face that smiled at him, that reached out with black claws and cold purpose for his throat.

It was the small light that called out to him.

A soft red, barely seen, weak, drifting out in the pitch black darkness and swaying side to side in a way that could be called beguiling. Kazuya followed that light – followed it, followed it, his feet skimming nothing but air, but sometimes dried grass and cattails that brushed against his forearms – a distant memory that didn’t exist.

He would wake up with his arm outstretched towards that light, and the remains of his dream slipping between his fingers like sand.

 

* * *

 

Modern society was changing in the wake of demons becoming commonplace.

Although it had been them, their little ragtag group of terrified teenagers and one immortal cousin, the government had been quick to step in and shunt them far from the power of responsibility regarding the rewritten demon summoning programme. Yuzu hadn’t cared – had been happy to have that nightmare behind them, Atsuro had been disappointed – loudly and earnestly – while Naoya- he had been strangely quiet, almost in a satisfied way.

Kazuya? He had mixed feelings.

 

* * *

 

“The administrator registered for the summoning programme is you, Mister Minegishi.”

At first, Kazuya had assumed that they had confused him with Naoya – they did share the same family name, after all. But no, they confirmed, it was  _Kazuya_  Minegishi, under username “Ba’al”. At Kazuya’s slightest whim, he could change the programme without needing the knowledge to hotwire a partly magical, partly technological, demon server. In fact, Kazuya’s will was the only thing keeping Atsuro and Naoya’s programming together. Before it had been Belberith, lending reality to a bunch of numbers and nonsense, but now it was Kazuya, and-

The government feared him. Naoya’s quiet satisfaction made some sense now.

 

* * *

 

It was after Kazuya had been shuffled from one tense government official to the next that he dreamt something new.

The red light was bright now, bright like the sun,  _glowing_ , and something soft whispered on the edge of his vision. Beguiling. Calling. A silhouette lit up by the red light, dangling over a small, sloping shoulder – young, slim, bare feet on dried, dead grass, and snarling thorns snagging at Kazuya’s forearms as he followed.

In those dreams, he followed that young man with the red light deeper into the swaying cattails mixed in with groping thorns, deeper and deeper, until a darkness rose up around his feet and

The man would turn around, but Kazuya would wake up before he’d see his face. He remembered the dreams this time. He remembered them with a tang of copper in his mouth and a dull, pounding headache in his left eye.

 

* * *

 

A hiccup had happened, six months after the Lockdown.

The server briefly went offline. Kazuya had a team of specialist forces knocking down his door and scaring his poor mother half to death. He had been asleep, unknowing of what had happened – he had been dragged off in his pyjamas, blearily eyed and head pounding, mouth like cotton, and been subjugated to a round of tense, barely constrained frightened interrogation on what on earth he had been playing at.

Kazuya had no idea. All he knew, when sitting in that cold, steel, interrogation room, was that he had been dreaming of something really fun and warm.

 

* * *

 

“…—“

The young man would be saying something in the dream now, but it was like static – distorted and unintelligible – but Kazuya would wake with his mouth moving, murmuring soft, gentle words-

“…close, so close…”

So close.

Kazuya’s hand would be reaching towards the ceiling, and his fingertips would feel warm, as if he was just touching a slim, welcoming hand. The shadows in his room seemed so dark in those moments, but the light from the street outside would cast a yellow glow over his outstretched arm, and he’d see the scratches of thorns cutting into his skin.

 

* * *

 

“Have those guys been letting you sleep at all?”

Those were Atsuro’s routine inquiries now. It was no secret that Kazuya was being closely monitored by the government now, with the server prone to moments of ‘offline’, correlated to moments of unconsciousness on Kazuya’s part. Theories were abound – Kazuya’s human body couldn’t withstand the strain, his mind was too weak to control it, the server’s programming was shoddy to begin with and was malfunctioning, endless, endless, endless, but it meant Kazuya wasn’t left alone, had unwelcome strangers turning up on his doorstep, and no possible way of having a normal life.

Not that he had a scrap of normal left in him, but-

“Not really. I haven’t been sleeping well anyway.”

Kazuya’s routine response to Atsuro’s question. He took a bite out of his jam sandwich, and the normally sweet taste was like ash on his tongue.

Food tasted so bad nowadays.

 

* * *

 

The young man’s face was his own.

Finally, after almost a year, Kazuya was close enough to tell. The pale face like a corpse, lips blue, baring a sharp toothed grin, as clawed fingers grasped onto his wrist, refusing to let go – blood trickled down Not-Him’s face, from a massive hole smashed into his skull, his left eye was gouged, but a dark red light burned in its socket, a terrible, terrible, terrible light whose gaze was so physical Kazuya could feel it slicing right into his breastbone like an actual scalpel.

Blue lips moved, words distorted, but the hand crept up his arm, clawing, dragging him closer – and Kazuya dug his heels into the rotting earth, the thorns biting into his clothes and keeping him there, closer, closer, until those ice cold hands were around his throat, black claws piercing into his throat –  _jugu **lar**_

 

* * *

 

Kazuya woke up with a voiceless scream choking in his chest. He thrashed, writhing, hands lashing at nothing – but laughter echoed in his ears, breathy and unhinged, and it took Kazuya a long, long moment to realise that it was coming out with his stuttering, terrified breaths.

 

* * *

 

The server was offline.

Something buzzed on the edge of Kazuya’s hearing. His eyes hurt.

No one had come for him yet though. He was sitting at his kitchen table, robotically eating a piece of toast, the television off, his mother and father out. He ate the toast. He knew the server was offline. It was a gut-deep feeling, one that crawled over his organs like a nest of spiders. He remained sitting at his table.

No one came for him in the end.

 

* * *

 

It was when he ran out of bread that Kazuya made himself go outside.

Night had fallen, and the streets were quiet – deserted. There wasn’t a soul breathing here, and the silence pressed all around him. Kazuya walked, in his pyjamas, bare feet skimming over dirty pavement, the cold sucking all the body heat out through his soles until he felt like an ice block had overtaken his legs.

He saw the first overturned car by the time he reached the end of his street. After that it was carnage.

 

* * *

 

The Hills Building had been put under heavy security once it had been established that the server resided there. Had been. There was no one there now.

How did he come to be here? His feet were bloody and sore, agonising, but the world around him was a blur, distant, shrouded in a deep, cold fog that left him feeling oddly unconcerned. He felt fine. Everything will be fine, something whispered to him. Fine. It’ll be fine. Climb up the building, go to the server, a Ba’al, do it. Go on. Do it. The server’s offline, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you turn it back on?

Kazuya entered the building and climbed the stairs, leaving bloody footprints behind.

 

* * *

 

The tower was still there, its bulging eyes staring down at him in single-minded focus. Its roots were buried deep into the floor, extending to the stories below, and the entire room seemed to breathe, like the bellows of a powerful furnace. Kazuya could feel his breathing sync with the tower’s, his heart thrumming in his throat, and he stumbled over the thick roots, half-blind, that feeling rising and pulsing at the insides of his ribs, urging him forwards. To go forwards. The server. Do it. Sever the last ties of it. Rip it all out.

Rip it all out.

His fingers – claws? – hands, dug into the soft, blackened flesh of Bel. The tower quivered, but something drove Kazuya, something cold and focused, something older than the seas themselves, something that told him to dig his claws deep inside, tear it open, gaze into the starry, expansive insides, and reach in and

 

* * *

 

The server was offline.

That was all Kazuya knew.

The end of the world had come while he had breakfast.

Or.

While Abel had breakfast.

 

* * *

 

Where did the Not-Him start and the Him end? Not-Him’s hands were still clenched around his throat, nothing remaining but a pulpy mess – with the cattails stretching high over their heads, a bright blue sky at odds with the darkness around them, swirling and spinning in dizzying circles.

Kazuya didn’t know where he started and the other began. They were both lying there, hands on throat, both on their backs, both gazing up at that sky, both of them screaming – why why why – hands outstretched and trembling, reaching for something that will forever evade their grasps.

Both of them were eternally dying – forever – and it was only fitting that the rest of humanity followed suit.

Once God’s corpse had been hollowed out to act as their graves.

 

* * *

 

The server had gone offline.

And Abel stood, victorious, on top of the Hills Building, in Kazuya’s pyjamas, reaching for the heavens to drag God down. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kazuya meets a dangerous foe: high school girls

Kazuya checked his watch impatiently as he prowled before Naoya-nii’s school gates. Five minutes he had been waiting, and that was  _ages_ , especially as Naoya-nii’s school got a lot of foot traffic in terms of adults (or really old looking teenagers), some of them giving him weird looks. It made Kazuya a little leery, especially as Naoya-nii told him that some unsavoury individuals lurked by schools sometimes.

He perked when he heard the trill of a school bell, spinning to face the building whilst gripping his bag’s strap. Finally! He hoped Naoya-nii wasn’t an absolute slowpoke either when it came to dragging his butt out of school – not when Kazuya made the very brave decision to visit his cousin after school! Normally, he waited for Naoya-nii outside his school, but he usually had to wait for almost forty minutes, and that was  _boring_ , so Kazuya decided to go to him.

Maybe he’ll get scolded, but Naoya-nii rarely stayed mad at him, and sometimes actively encouraged independent thinking and the like. He might even be pleased! Or not care at all. Really, anything could happen.

After a few more minutes, students began to trickle out in a steady stream. All of them were so  _tall_ , compared to Kazuya in any case, and many of them totally blanked the small ten year old vainly trying to see over the sea of students. One time Kazuya had to quickly jump out of the way when a group of loudly talking boys almost ran him over! Rude!

“Aw, hey little fella. You lost?”

Still huffing and puffing over the rude boys from earlier, Kazuya turned his pouty face upwards to see a teenage girl looming over him. She was tall, with sleek black hair and wearing a uniform. Oh, so she was from Naoya-nii’s school. He  _looked_  nice, but Kazuya remembered Naoya-nii’s ‘Stranger Danger’ talk, so squinted at her suspiciously, pursing his lips.

“Hey, don’t be shy~” the girl crooned, squatting down so she was more at his height. Kazuya took a subtle step away. “What’s your name? Mine’s Mika. You waiting for someone?”

Kazuya stubbornly looked away, pushing up on his tiptoes even if it was a futile endeavour. Why was everyone so tall? At least Naoya-nii was even _taller_ , so he should see his white hair above everyone else’s if he kept _looking_ -

“Hey, who’re you talking to, Mika?”

“Yeah, who’s the kid?”

More girls joined the first, and Kazuya reluctantly abandoned his Naoya Search in favour of giving them a disgruntled look. It was a stare Naoya-nii gave to particularly annoying losers, and it was 100% effective in making them run away with pale faces. Unfortunately, Kazuya was unable to mimic the effects…

“Awww, that’s so cute! Look how he’s  _pouting_! Hey, is he yours, Mika?”

“What?  _No_! I just saw him standing here. I think he’s waiting for someone…”

“Ohhh, who’d have a cute little brother like this? I hope it’s one of the hot guys~”

“Are guys all that you think about?”

They were  _so **annoying**_.

Kazuya, a bit put out that his glare didn’t work, sulked off. He got about three paces until the girls were upon him again, this time in greater number (wait, why was there seven of them now??). They chattered and cooed at him – one even touched his headphones, the special ones Naoya-nii got him for his last birthday! Why were high school students so rude?!

“H-Hey!” Kazuya spoke for the first time, “Stop that!”

“Hey, hey, kid!” One of them called out, and Kazuya felt like he was getting dizzy with how all these girls were crowding round him. He couldn’t see past them, or over them – how was he going to find Naoya-nii like this?! How was Naoya-nii going to find  _him_?! What if he missed him and Naoya-nii went to his school and found him gone and got worried? No, not worried… angry. Angry Naoya-nii was… so so terrifying…

“What? Leave me alone! I’m trying to find Naoya-nii!” Kazuya yelled, starting to get a little scared at this point, “I don’t wanna talk to you!”

“Naoya-?”

“Wait, did he just say  _Naoya_?”

“That  _weirdo_  has a little brother as cute as this?”

“Hmm, I do sorta see the resemblance… ‘though he looks a lot less creepy!”

Kazuya shouting only served to make them more insistent, and he swallowed a quiet whine as the girls chattered and jostled him (accidentally). This was so scary – urgh, he had to escape before Naoya-nii left without him! Or, worse! Abandon him to get trapped by these girls forever!

But there was nowhere for him to wriggle through in the forest of legs, and Kazuya wasn’t sure he had the strength to shove over a seventeen year old teenager, so he fell back on his only weapon available. His voice.

Sucking in a deep breath, Kazuya opened his mouth and-

 

* * *

 

Naoya grumbled as he all but powerwalked out of the school building, hastily checking his watch. It was 1540, and it took almost ten minutes to get to Kazuya’s school from here… his cousin would have been waiting for him for almost an hour by the time Naoya got there, which meant an entire afternoon’s worth of whining and pouting as retribution.

Shudder.

If only that fool of a teacher didn’t drag the lesson on past the end of school bell. It had been about a pitifully easy subject as well – Naoya had almost dug out his own eyes with his biro pen from boredom alone.

Muttering oaths under his breath, Naoya quickened his pace, almost breaking into an outright jog, when he noticed the large gaggle of teenage girls lingering by the gate. He was approaching them rapidly, but Naoya forced them out of mind. It was probably nothing important. Besides, he had a very pressing mission-

“ _NAOYA-NIIIIIII!!!”_

Kazuya’s wail cut him to the core.

Naoya reacted automatically. He changed course without thinking, practically storming over to the gaggle of fussing teenage girls where another, yet quieter, wail of his name floated from the mob. A dark thought settled over him – because he certainly was not imagining that voice, and Naoya was amazingly good at putting two and two together ridiculously quick – and with a face frighteningly cold, he all but ploughed into the group of girls with little mercy.

He got a few yelps here and there, Naoya didn’t care, he wasn’t known to be very chivalrous in this school, and was soon in the middle of the gaggle. There, in the centre, looking teary-eyed and more than a little scared, was Kazuya. The little  _brat_. He must’ve come here instead of waiting outside of his own school (where it was  _safe!_ ), and got cornered by these hungry beasts. Huh! Naoya was tempted to leave him to his fate to serve as a lesson, but…

“Naoya-nii!” Kazuya launched himself like a cannonball, all but slamming into his gut (and a far more tender area) with the force of one too. Naoya saw  _stars_.

“ _Erk_ -!” It was a testament to his willpower that he didn’t collapse into a useless puddle on the floor there and then. His knees certainly felt weak enough to make him crumple, but he stayed standing, breathing through the windedness to clamp a hand  _tight_  on his little brother’s shoulder, giving the gathered (and now quiet) girls a cool look.

He decided to do the ~mysterious~ exit and leave wordlessly, his brother still attached to his waist like a limpet. He had to suppress a wince with each step, pressing his lips together thinly as they finally escaped the group (which was now dispersing with disgruntled mutters and glowers shot at his “killjoy” back), his hand still clenched into Kazuya’s shoulder like he was expecting his brother to let go and run off into the street.

Once they were a little distance away from the school gates, and Naoya trusted himself to speak without his voice cracking, he started to pry off his brother, face set in an unamused glower.

“Just  _what_  were you thinking?” he all but purred, voice deceptively light while his eyes were hard. Kazuya squirmed under the weight of his stare, scuffing his feet and fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

“Umm…jus’, stuff… like…mnnhm…” he mumbled, trailing off into utter incoherency.

Naoya felt his eyebrow twitch.

“I told you to  _wait_  at  _your_  school, Kazuya,” he said firmly. “Even though you’re not that far from me, it’s dangerous for a ten year old to make that journey by himself in this type of society.”

 _Especially_  as an abduction had happened recently in the area regarding a young child. While the odds of it happening again were low, as the police presence in the area had been increased, the odds still  _existed_ , and having Kazuya get plucked up off the street by some disgusting insect unworthy of life was enough to make Naoya’s blood boil. He’d rather kill his brother (again), than let him suffer than sort of fate.

“But Naoya-nii takes so long to get me!” Kazuya whined. Naoya was having none of it.

“Patience is a virtue,  _Kazuya_. I have told you this enough times. I apologise if I take too long to get to you, but that doesn’t mean you can walk off as you please without informing me. What if I hadn’t noticed you before I left? You’d still be there, and I would be looking for  _you_  at your school, possibly calling the police if you weren’t found,” Naoya’s voice didn’t rise, but his tone became harsher, expression cold and condemning, “Did you even give thought to that?”

“N-No…” Kazuya was wilting, his bottom lip trembling as he stared up at Naoya with an expression that could almost be called betrayal. It practically  _burned_  him, the look dragging up something old and painful. Naoya, with some difficulty, stifled it.

“You are never to do that again,” he ordered, staring down at his sniffling brother before softening his stern expression. Right. He felt he’d hammered this lesson home enough. “Do you understand?”

Kazuya nodded, looking utterly miserable.     

“Good.” Now then, “Come along, then. We’re late enough as it is.”

Naoya held out his hand, and Kazuya stared at it for a few seconds. For a moment, Naoya thought his brother was going to refuse it – probably to sulk all the way back instead – but slowly, cautiously, Kazuya reached out and gently grasped onto his hand, his head bowed as they made their way home. The silence was painfully stiff, but Naoya shut it out with ease and merely looked ahead. He didn’t regret it. He tolerated a lot of Kazuya’s silly and reckless acts, but that could have ended in a very nasty way. It could have easily been someone else other than overly affectionate high school girls that picked him up.

Still… Naoya knew he must be getting soft. Before he could deliver such lessons without so much as a twinge. Now, though… it had almost been emotionally painful to ruthlessly batter Kazuya like that. Had Naoya’s weakness to his brother always been that glaring? He hoped not… it would make the future a little more difficult to embrace.

“M’sorry, Naoya-nii…” Surprisingly, it was Kazuya who broke the thick ice between them, voice barely above a mumble, “I just… wanted to surprise you… show that I knew how to get there…”

“…” He  _really_  was getting soft. “It’s fine. Just do it when you’re older.”

Much older. Like, seventeen.

Kazuya nodded mutely, and said nothing else after that. But, the tension was a little easier to tolerate, and Naoya stifled a sigh. Soft indeed. Since when did he start feeling guilty over admonishing someone of all things?


	8. Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Naoya route. Twenty five years after the fall of God, Naoya has a coffee date with the famous Abel who brought him down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear up any confusion about ages: Naoya is pushing 49 years old, and Kaz is pushing 32 years old - although he still physically looks 17.

_“Today marks the 25 th anniversary of Tyrant Eli’s defeat by the hand of our blessed God Abel. As you can see behind me, the annual celebration of this glorious event is in full swing in Ueno Park. Ah, the effigy burning of the Tyrant Eli has just started to begin too! A little early for this time, but this just shows that-”_

Naoya eyed the small HD television with no small level of amusement, the murmur of the small café quiet enough for him to hear the total ridiculousness of what he was witnessing. It was still too early in the day for the true celebrations to begin – barely past three o’clock in the afternoon – but it seemed youth never lost its vigour, as indeed, in Ueno Park, there was a massive gathering of rowdy (and no doubt drunk) university students partying it up, and- oh, oh dear, that effigy burning seemed to be getting out of hand quickly…

 

“My, my, what a stir. Your fanclub’s beginning to run wild,” Naoya hummed, finally turning his attention from the television to his companion sitting across from him. They had both sequestered themselves in the darkest, tiniest corner of this humble café, and neither of them garnered even a glance from the other patrons. Not that Naoya expected nosiness from here – the majority of the customers were demons, and they knew better than to pay attention to his and their king’s business.  

 

“They’re not my fanclub,” his companion, the “Blessed God Abel” in fact, sniffed, “They’re my _cult_. There’s a distinct difference, y’know.”

 

“Is that so?” Naoya hid his smile behind his teacup, “I believe they’re one in the same… they buy your merchandise, send you fan letters-”

 

“Prayers!” Abel interjected, “They send me prayers!”

 

“Write fanfiction about you and your friends, including me-”

 

“That’s your fault. You and Atsuro started that stupid thread on that foru-”

 

“And you have groupies throwing themselves at your feet or waiting for you in your bedroom every weekend or so.”

 

“That hasn’t happened for months now!” Abel huffed, though his adorably youthful face was looking pink. Even after thirty years, his brother hadn’t aged a day, and thus was forever unable to shed his lingering puppy fat. It worked well when he was charming people, but when it came to intimidation… well, that was why Naoya existed.

 

“Hmm, actually, I had to escort a rather ambitious girl off the premises this morning,” Naoya said impishly, “She got as far as your bedroom door. Goodness, who knows what would’ve happened if I hadn’t come across her.”

 

“You’re a dick,” Abel muttered sullenly, viciously ripping apart his Danish pastry and scattering crumbs all over the table. “You don’t age well, Naoya. You become meaner with each year. What, are your creaky old bones generating more spite in that black hole you call a heart?”

   

“I’d say you’re the one growing meaner. Whatever happened to that cheerful, naïve little boy I knew and raised?” Naoya tutted. “Godhood has jaded you.”

 

Abel stopped his mauling of the pastry to fix him with a dull-eyed stare. One of the negatives to Kazuya fusing with the remnants of Bels was that his piercing baby blues were no more – instead, piercing red eyes gazed at him with an intensity that made even him shudder if they caught him off guard. However, this time Naoya was prepared for that weighty stare, so he met it with a bland smile, even tilting his head in faux-confusion.

 

“Hmm? Am I wrong?”

 

“No…” Abel sighed suddenly, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms over his chest with a small pout, “Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, when I see things like this,” he gestured to the television, “I didn’t kill God to replace him, y’know? I told the Shomonkai they didn’t have to follow me, but they did, and now everything’s gotten blown out of proportion when they made that cult. Ah, I just don’t know what to do…”

 

“You don’t need to do anything,” Naoya pointed out, easing up on his teasing for now, “You don’t owe them anything – in fact, they owe _you_. Just relax and know you have succeeded where no one else could, and live your life however you wish.”

 

“That’d be irresponsible,” Abel said, though he looked tempted to follow Naoya’s advice, “I should, I don’t know, tell them to tone it down a bit? I mean, I’m nothing special, really. Everyone had the potential to be where I’m sitting now.”

 

Naoya fixed his brother with a critical stare at that. What Abel said _was_ true… the majority of humanity possessed Abel’s essence, and if the stars aligned correctly, anyone could have stumbled into Kazuya’s position all those decades ago. But it wouldn’t have worked according to Naoya’s desired outcome – Kazuya was Abel’s reincarnation, the only way for him to bring his brother back from the abyss he had been cast to when his soul was shattered. It could have been no other, in the end.

 

“…perhaps, but you were the most likely to succeed,” Naoya said carefully, “Could you honestly say Atsuro, Yuzu or Kuzuryu would have done what you have?”

 

“Yes,” Abel answered without hesitation. “When I was Kazuya, they possessed the potential too. Ah, though, I doubt they would’ve been happy with it, especially Yuzu. All she wants is a normal life.”

 

Naoya scoffed under his breath. Yuzu Tanikawa… she had obtained the normal life she sought with _Atsuro_ of all people. It had come of no surprise to himself – he’d predicted it after witnessing their interactions for all of five seconds – but Abel had been so stunned when the announcement of their engagement came that he had spent the entirety of their visit with his mouth hanging open. Then again, his brother was about as observant as a stump. He still didn’t know Yuzu had a crush on him once.

 

“Speaking of,” Abel brightened, obviously wishing to move onto more mundane, yet cheerful topics, “She should be giving birth soon. She’s worried since she’s getting on a bit, but the baby felt healthy. Oh, it’s another girl by the way, like you predicted. You must be cheating somehow, I swear.”

 

“It’s just skill,” Naoya hummed. Yuzu’s past two children had been girls, so the math was pretty simple. “Is she still going with Akimi?”

 

“I think she’s letting Atsuro name her,” Abel laughed a little, “Though she looked a little pained when she told me. I think she’s dreading what he’d come up with.”

 

“How brave of her…”

 

“I’m kind of jealous to be honest,” Abel pouted, “I wanted to name one of her kids too. She said if she had another one, she’d let me claim dibs but, considering her age…”

 

“Hmm, it’s unlikely she’ll have another child,” Naoya finished, “True. I predict this will be her last one.”

 

“Argh, no…” Abel languished dramatically in his seat, “If _you_ say it, then it’s a 100% certainty! Why have you dashed my hopes, Naoya… so mean… cruel…”

 

Naoya watched him without sympathy, merely sipping his tea. Their conversation dropped into a comfortable lull, and Naoya turned his attention back on the television. The news was still running on the topic of the anniversary of God’s defeat, though it seemed to be revolving around a discussion between two SMEs on demons. Seemed like they were discussing the God “Abel”.

 

It was funny, how this had happened. Naoya supposed that humanity wished to fill the void that God’s death had left. Though he was a tyrannical ruler, he was a ruler humanity knew and grew dependant on, or at least, used to. Latching onto Abel, launching him into God’s old position… he supposed it gave them comfort.

 

Well, it was beneficial to them at least, since it gave Naoya the necessary clout for him to make Abel’s life easier, but he could see that it pained his brother greatly. Abel wished to give humanity independence, not shackle them to a new God, but it wasn’t as if he could order them to stop worshipping him either. Ah, what a dilemma.

 

“Hey, Naoya,” Abel’s tone was soft, “I was wondering…”

 

Naoya turned his focus back on his brother, curious at the sudden shift in mood, “Hm?”

 

Abel stared at him with an unreadable look for a long moment, before heaving a sigh, “Oh, nothing. I was just… hm, I suppose, I was wondering…ah, that is to say…”

 

“You know I hate nothing more than mumbled, half-finished sentences.”

 

“Shut up, I’m trying to collect my thoughts,” Abel huffed, “What I’m trying to ask is, well, I don’t want to be disturbed tonight. I mean, if you think the humans are going wild, the demons are even worse. So, I was thinking. You, erm, you wanna stay with me tonight? You know, distract me from just… today?”

 

Naoya didn’t immediately reply. He sipped his tea instead, scrutinising his brother like he would an interesting insect. Abel didn’t squirm, or blush, or look otherwise shamefaced. Ah, despite his young appearance, his brother truly had matured into a man. It made something twinge oddly in his heart, though Naoya couldn’t effectively pin the emotion down. He dismissed it as irrelevant.

 

“Hm.” Naoya smiled, “Of course. I was planning to do so, anyway.”

 

“Ah, you dog,” Abel grinned though, looking inordinately pleased with himself, “I _did_ think it strange that you asked me out on a coffee date. Are you getting sentimental in your old age, Naoya?”   

 

“It is the 25th anniversary of your famous victory, Blessed God Abel,” Naoya said dryly, “I had to make it special, didn’t I?”

 

“Ugh, don’t… ever call me that again,” Abel shuddered, “I felt my skin crawl. There is just something _wrong_ with you calling anything a “blessed God”.”

 

Naoya simply smiled and set his teacup down. “So, how can I distract you, Abel?”

 

Abel matched his smile, though something about it seemed wistful, “You can start by calling me Kazuya. Just for tonight.”

 

“…Kazuya,” Naoya amended, though the name made him feel strange. He hadn’t used it since Kazuya had merged with Bel twenty five years ago, simply because Kazuya no longer _existed_. Atsuro certainly gained his answer to “what happens when two demons fuse to make a third?” though at the cost of his friend. In a way. Abel was a new person entirety, but he still contained the essential components that also made him Kazuya.

 

“I’m feeling nostalgic,” Abel – Kazuya – explained, as if sensing Naoya’s mild confusion, “I don’t know. Perhaps I’m wishing for a simpler time. Everything seemed so easy back then, when all I had to worry about was school and what my career would be.”

 

“So you wish to pretend?”

 

“Something like that…” Kazuya sighed, “I don’t regret what I’ve done or who I’ve become, but at the same time… Kazuya misses you too,” he reached out a hand, and Naoya took it without hesitation. Kazuya’s hand was warm, bordering on hot, with rough callouses from decades of fighting. “I miss you.”

 

“…I suppose I have been neglecting you,” Naoya murmured. He felt the demons in the café briefly focus on them, but a quick glance from Kazuya’s eyes quickly made them lose interest. When his brother looked back at him, his gaze had softened considerably, and Naoya could see the faintest ring of blue at the edges of his irises.

 

Hm, perhaps Kazuya still existed in a way, just as Abel’s essence did… his cousin was damnably stubborn.

 

“Here I am calling you sentimental, while I’m…” Kazuya laughed a little, “Well, never mind. Okay, Naoya, sweep me off my feet. Impress me.”

 

Easily done. Naoya lifted Kazuya’s hand, leaned down and – kissed the back of his brother’s knuckles. He felt those warm fingers twitch in surprise, heard Kazuya breathe in sharply – really now, his brother should’ve known better. If Naoya was a sentimental old fool, then Kazuya was a blushing, soft-hearted romantic.

 

“Ohhh, I forgot you played dirty…” Kazuya groaned. “You pervy old man.”

 

Naoya straightened up with a cat-like smile, amused at the sight of his brother’s slightly pink face. If only his fanclub could see him now… it was reassuring to see, however, that no matter the years that passed, no matter the conflicts or trials his brother faced, he remained the same. Naoya had been fully prepared to sacrifice his brother to his revenge, and while he would never have regretted it if it had obliterated the person he knew in this lifetime and the first one… well, this was still a fortunate outcome.

 

“You’re just easy,” Naoya said, “Look, if I kiss your fingertips, you…”

 

“Ah, no! Not _here_! Everyone’s watching…!”

 

…

 

You know, Naoya actually identified that odd little twinge in his heart. As this was his final life, as there were no more repeated lifetimes after this, when he thought about Kazuya, Abel, both of them, remaining the same, while he moved forwards into uncharted territories, towards death, he felt…

 

…

 

He supposed it didn’t matter.


	9. Until The Earth Stops Spinning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Messiah ending. Naoya’s death felt soft - no, it was numbing. Like a burn that went all the way to the bone it felt too fatal to even consider pain.

Naoya had been reduced to a urn.

It was small, unassuming porcelain. White. Smooth. Very pretty. Could fit on his mantelpiece if he wanted to put it there – ‘here are the ashes of Cain, murderer of Me’, the plaque would say. But he didn’t want that. Not at all. But he didn’t want to place it away out of sight either, where Kazuya would soon forget about it, until decades later when possessed by an urge to spring clean his ‘lair’, as some of his subjects called it.

A large marble building with blessings towards Him. Not what Kazuya would call _his_ lair, but-

His room was also small and unassuming. The Shomonkai had wanted to give him something more extravagant, but Kazuya refused. It was a tiny bedroom, almost a closet really, with a bed, a mantelpiece, a window that let him have a good view of the New Tokyo (for the world’s structure had changed vastly in these past decades), and a bathroom. It wasn’t touched by God – everyone’s house had a bible now, or some other holy thing that linked them to the Lord. Kazuya found it invasive, and the confusion of it all clawed in his throat, left him feeling strangely guilty.

Naoya had visited once. He had been forty, and still bitter as he had been during the lockdown. No words had been exchanged, nothing significant anyway – meaningless small talk, with a bite of bitterness on both sides, until Naoya excused himself and left. He didn’t come back, and Kazuya never extended an invitation. That had been the last time… the last time until-

His bed’s springs creaked as he shifted his weight, and he continued to stroke his fingers over the smooth coolness of the urn. The last time had been before he was turned to ashes, no, a little before that, when he still breathed. He had been an old man then, strange to see, strange to come to the realisation that Naoya, eternal and ageless, could actually look old. He never said anything meaningful then either. Death wasn’t something that could move even Naoya’s heart, even if it shoved Kazuya’s off an emotional cliff.

He remembered crying when it ended. He had cried, even if he knew, logically, that Naoya wasn’t really gone. He would come back, breathed into a new, young body, and relive his life anew, relive his angry, bitter rage until that body crumbled into dust, and they were back to square one. Still, Kazuya cried, because bodies were different, _brains_ were different, and it would never be _Naoya_ , it would be someone else, someone else with his memories and quick wit – but not the same. A copy, really. Something…

Kazuya pulled the lid off the urn. Peering inside, it smelt of charcoal, the insides smudged with dark. His cousin had been reduced to this – a tiny little pot. Naoya had been tall, had several inches on him, really, and to see that a human body like that could be reduced to something that could fill a bowl… it was sobering.

That would never be him. Kazuya was eternal in every respect of the word. He wouldn’t age, he wouldn’t crumble to dust, he’ll move throughout this world until it stopped spinning, and God no longer mattered, and the sun swallowed it up. Maybe he’ll exist after that, drifting through the crazy dimension of the demons, where the sky was cracked crystal, and hallucinations and visions flew distorted throughout the sky, foretelling the end of worlds that Kazuya had never heard of. Maybe he would stagnate there, until he was like any other demon, until he forgot everything that made him Kazuya.

Would Naoya be _dead_ then? Forever? Maybe. Probably.

He put the lid back on the urn and contemplated it. When he had requested this, he had no idea what he was going to do with it. Bury it? Give him the funeral no one else would – who remembered Naoya? No one. No one did. Atsuro was long gone by now – sickness had claimed his friend at the age of twenty five, and Kazuya had cried then, clutching at his urn until the porcelain had cracked – and so was Yuzu – she lived until she was fifty nine, and had smiled at him so sadly the night before she died. Kazuya had been short-sighted, and to this day he wished he could rewind time to that point, to say-

Kazuya felt strangely empty.

Yuzu and Atsuro’s death had felt like a debilitating blow. It took him days to find his feet again, to stumble through until he could function as ‘The Messiah’ again. Naoya’s death felt softer – no, it was numbing. Like a burn that went all the way to the bone it felt too fatal to even consider pain. It was the end of an era – all those who knew Kazuya were dead, Amane included (she died so soon after the lockdown, in the line of duty, it was so sickening to think that some common thug had managed to get her, so undeserving – she deserved long, happy life, after living underneath authority for so long, unable to flourish as she should).

Isolation.

Was this how Naoya felt every time he woke to a new body? Everyone was gone who knew him as Naoya, or Cain, or whatever name his last life had been. Only Kazuya knew he was Kazuya, only knew that before he put on the mantle of Messiah, he was someone with poor fashion sense, had a love for rap, and he had slight hayfever that would reduce him to humiliating sneezing fits. Only Kazuya knew that now. Only Kazuya would ever know that now.

Except Naoya – but Kazuya had no way to find him when he woke up. Naoya could rise on the other side of the world, and never even come close to crossing paths with him. He could be wherever for eternity, with Kazuya digging through a million haystacks for one needle.

He stood up.

The urn felt heavy in his hands, and Kazuya turned it round and round in his palms. He felt it slip, but didn’t try to catch it. It crashed to the floor, pieces skittering everywhere, under his bed, and a pile of ashes remained on his floor, dusting his feet, clinging to the hems of his trousers.

Kazuya just stared at it, and then slowly sat down, digging his fingers into the soft dust.

“Naoya’s dead,” he said to the dust pile, “Whoever’s going to come back won’t be him anymore, it’ll be someone else. My Naoya’s gone.”

He still felt empty, but now it had a sharp edge, and he made a quiet keening noise like a dying animal in the back of his throat. His fingers fisted into the dust, feeling it slip between them.

“He’s dead,” he said, a little louder, to the ceiling, though to who, he didn’t know, “Dead, okay! I know that! I know- and I didn’t even-“

But he did – on Naoya’s deathbed he spilled it all out, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Naoya I’m sorry, please, please don’t hate me when you go, I’m sorry”.

And Naoya had said nothing in return. He had just looked at him, and that had hurt more than any cutting words would.

Kazuya lifted his hands. The ash clung to his cheeks, his eyelashes, and he breathed out. It tickled his nose. “Dead… it won’t be him anymore…”

But still filled with hatred, still filled with bitterness, still doomed to walk this earth until it stopped spinning, like Kazuya, to walk until the sun swallowed them up and it didn’t matter anymore.

He left the ash on the floor, he left it smeared on his skin, stinging his eyes, and curled up amongst the cutting shards of porcelain. The world continued to spin, nowhere close to stopping yet, and for once, for once, the slippery, sickening stab of regret pierced him right in the stomach.

He wished for many things, but Kazuya did not have the power to rewind time, no matter how much he wanted to. 


End file.
